Test your knowledge of 2024’s biggest Canadian tech news

Rather than succumbing to pressures to sell early or go public, Clio has instead provided its investors with liquidity by raising rounds with significant amounts of secondary capital to bring new blood to its cap table. Clio’s decision to remain a private company appears to have proven wise, with many public tech companies actively choosing to return to the private market this year.

Centaur status is achieved by companies that reach $100 million in annual recurring revenue. Assent hit the milestone in June, Vena in July, and at the BetaKit Town Hall: Vancouver, Jane App co-founder Alison Taylor revealed her startup became a centaur earlier in 2024.

In August, Toronto-based Radical Ventures launched an $800-million USD ($1.13-billion CAD) growth fund to invest in late-stage AI companies. This brings the VC firm’s total assets under management to $1.8 billion, and according to The Financial Times, is the largest fund of its kind for AI.

Timed with the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, Knix paid national and international athletes up to $2,000 per person to talk publicly about their periods. The startup partnered with US former Olympian Megan Rapinoe to reward period advocacy and normalize the topic of periods in sports.

Following the release of the federal budget in April, critics have argued the government’s decision could lead to all three outcomes. Despite months of conversation surrounding the decision, as of Dec. 20, the federal government has not yet enshrined the capital gains tax changes into law.

Answer: The proposed Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA), intended to regulate AI, has been stuck in committee since September 2023. Canadian AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio has criticized the lack of progress on Bill C-27, while former justice minister David Lametti has expressed doubts it will ever reach royal assent.

Throughout 2024, BetaKit tracked a tidal wave of executive leadership turnover at Canadian tech companies, a list that includes Top Hat, MindBridge, and Lightspeed, among many others. Plooto, Zafin, TryCycle, and Paper were among those that parted ways with their founding CEOs this year.

In January, Toronto-based challenger bank Koho announced it had been quietly working with regulators for more than two years to obtain a Schedule 1 banking licence. In an interview with BetaKit, Koho founder and CEO Daniel Eberhard argued that gaining access to the same playing field as the country’s banks would allow Koho to own its destiny and have a seat at the table with direct payments infrastructure.

In September, Shopify announced plans to pilot its checkout experience with Roblox, one of the world’s most popular video games. The integration allows Shopify users to sell physical products directly to customers in Roblox games using real currency, without leaving the Roblox platform.

Toronto-based mortgage startup Pine, launched in 2022, is managing both the lending and underwriting for Wealthsimple’s mortgage product. Wealthsimple’s vice-president of growth told BetaKit that Pine’s vision of being the “Wealthsimple for home buying” sparked the initial discussions between the two companies.

SRTX’s $35-million CAD convertible debt investment from Québec’s investment arm, will increase the company’s production capacity and allow it to own and operate its entire supply chain. Starting December 2024, the startup will produce its unbreakable fibre entirely in-house. The funding came 10 months after SRTX opened a 300,000 square-foot manufacturing facility in Québec.