It turns out I was wrong.
In 2024, I was responsible for a lot of parasocial helicopter parenting about Canadian tech’s young generation of entrepreneurs. People like Jocelyne Murphy and Scott Langille, who both spoke at BetaKit Town Halls. Without the support and mentorship they were asking for, I said, we might soon lament Canadian tech’s lost generation.
The kids weren’t lost. They were just in the lab, building.
Last week, Socratica hosted possibly the world’s largest student-run tech demo day at the Waterloo Rec Centre, filling the 2,500-person venue and leaving an additional 1,300 hopeful attendees to watch the livestream.
I encourage you to watch it yourself. Like a Sex Pistols concert, in 10 years everyone will claim to have seen it live. Like a Sex Pistols concert, it will launch a bunch of great bands (and hopefully a few great tech companies, too).
You can see Murphy and Langille in the photo above, smiling and fist-pumping and hugging like they have both successfully produced and won the Super Bowl, or maybe the 4 Nations Cup. Founded in 2022 by a couple of University of Waterloo students, Socratica’s Symposiums have tripled in size with each edition. The collective now has a node on every continent and wants one in every major city around the world.
My old BlackBerry colleague and Market.dev founder, Tarun Sachdeva, told me that Socratica will end up being more important for Waterloo than UW’s co-op program. A bold prediction!
I asked Anson Yu, one of the Symposium organizers, why so many young people from around the world wanted to come to their demo day. “People want to feel that there are people excited and doing something about making the future better,” she said. Socratica provides the “social permissioning” to try something new.
In the days following, many of these young people reacted online as if they had just experienced the canon event of their origin stories. I’m all for self-awareness but I would encourage them to keep looking to the future.
Go further. We’re all rooting for you. We’ll help where we can.
Douglas Soltys
Editor-in-chief
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TOP STORIES OF THE WEEK
Liberals’ capital gains tax hike is dead, lifetime exemption limit increase to stay
Prime Minister Mark Carney officially announced that the Government of Canada will cancel its proposed hike to the capital gains tax inclusion rate, following nearly a year of backlash from Canadian technology and business leaders since the Liberals introduced the changes in Budget 2024.
The feds also said they intend to maintain the planned increase to the Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption limit to $1.25 million on the sale of small business shares and farming and fishing property. The announcement did not mention the Canadian Entrepreneurs’ Incentive, the other measure the Liberals announced last year to mitigate the impact of their capital gains tax hike.
Telus partners with Nvidia to transform its data centre into a Canadian “Sovereign AI Factory”
Canadian telecommunications giant Telus has partnered with global semiconductor manufacturer Nvidia to upgrade the artificial intelligence (AI) compute power of its Rimouski, Que. data centre and turn it into a “Sovereign AI Factory.”
Announced this week at Nvidia’s GTC conference for AI developers, Telus’s upgraded data centre in Rimouski, Que. aims to help Canadian businesses and researchers develop AI products by providing the supercomputers and software needed to train AI while keeping data within Canada’s borders.
How meaningful is D-Wave’s claim to quantum supremacy?
Canadian-born company D-Wave Quantum Systems said last week that it achieved “quantum supremacy” in what it calls a groundbreaking paper in the prestigious journal Science. Despite the lofty term, some Canadian experts say supremacy is not the be-all, end-all of quantum innovation.
FreshBooks reveals new CEO Shaheen Javadizadeh after securing $179 million in debt from Morgan Stanley
Toronto-based accounting software company FreshBooks has casually unveiled Shaheen Javadizadeh as new permanent CEO alongside a new $125-million USD ($179-million CAD) debt financing round.
The new leader and financing follow a multi-year struggle for the company, which has seen a number of executive departures, office closures, and rounds of job cuts. According to Morgan Stanley, FreshBooks is expected to use this new debt financing to refinance its existing debt and fuel its continued growth.
Shopify acquires search startup Vantage Discovery for undisclosed amount
Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify has acquired San Jose, Calif.-based artificial intelligence-powered retailer search startup Vantage Discovery for an undisclosed amount.
While Shopify declined to disclose any details of the transaction, the company told BetaKit that Vantage Discovery’s search platform and team will play a key role in “supercharging” Shopify’s work for both merchants and buyers.
Shopify also announced that it is voluntarily transferring its United States stock exchange listing from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to the Nasdaq Global Select Market (Nasdaq) on March 28. Shopify will continue trading under the ticker symbol SHOP, and its Toronto Stock Exchange listing remains unaffected.
Canada invests $36.6 million in Strategic Innovation Fund technology networks
The Government of Canada is investing a total of $36.6 million in five Strategic Innovation Fund networks in hopes of fostering emerging technology sectors and attracting major investments.
The investments include support for the Clean Resource Innovation Network, the Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network, the Canadian Food Innovation Network, Natural Products Canada, and the Mining Innovation Commercialization Accelerator.
Upcoming tech events
As the snow thaws and the temperatures warm, Canadian tech emerges from hibernation to gather at events across the country.
- Elevate’s CIX Summit 2025 will take place March 26 at Toronto’s Design Exchange. Laura Lenz from OMERS Ventures and Prashant Matta from Panache Ventures are leading opening remarks, and Clio CEO Jack Newton will share the experience of building his legaltech brand.
- The blockchain- and web3-oriented Consensus conference has revealed the lineup of speakers for its inaugural Toronto showing, which runs May 14-16, 2025. Speakers include the likes of WonderFi CEO Dean Skurka and Coinbase Canada CEO Lucas Matheson.
- Web Summit Vancouver has revealed the first 25 speakers for its conference at the Vancouver Convention Centre from May 27-30. The rebranded Collision features Jay Graber, CEO of emergent microblogging service Bluesky, 1Password co-CEO Jeff Shiner, and Trevor Martin, the head of Mammoth Biosciences (the biotech firm hoping to resurrect the woolly mammoth).
- This year’s Startupfest will take place from July 9 to 11 at Montréal’s Grand Quay. The festival will feature appearances from Hustle Fund general partner Elizabeth Yin, Mila senior director Shingai Manjengwa, and Alchemist Accelerator CEO Ravi Belani.
FEATURED STORIES FROM OUR PARTNERS
More highlights from across the Canadian ecosystem:
- Small businesses told TD they needed one e-commerce solution, not a patchwork of tools. Read about why TD built its own e-commerce platform in partnership with BigCommerce.
- John Solomos chose to scale his startup in his hometown of Markham. Today, BlueBird IT Solutions is the country’s largest healthcare IT-managed services provider. Read the founder’s tribute to the City of Markham.
- Innovate BC’s Integrated Marketplace started as a testbed for emerging startups in BC. Amid the current trade war, it has taken on a new importance. Read about why the program is becoming a hedge against US uncertainty.
Weekly Canadian Deals & Dollars 
- VAN – UniDoc to acquire the software used in its health cubes
- CGY – Summit Nanotech secures $36.5M for lithium extraction tech
- CGY – Former Klue reps raise $500K for sales platform Quack
- WPG – AdTech company Taiv acquihires Local Reach founding team
- KW – Page raises $4.1M seed for government relations platform
- KW – Google reportedly close to acquiring AdHawk
- TOR – Doormat rebrands to Ownright, secures $4.5M seed round
- TOR – Sprout Family raises $1.7M pre-seed round
- MTL – Polytechnique Montréal receives $50M to establish deep tech institute
The BetaKit Podcast — AI roundup: Cohere commands attention, Apple Intelligence delays, a vibe coding PSA
“Apple won’t use user data to develop and train AI. And Apple lives in a world where AI is going to be table stakes in any software or hardware moving forward.”
A tech palate cleanse for all the election and trade war talk. This week, Rob and Doug tackle the latest AI developments: vibe coding, Cohere’s (temporary?) LLM pole position, AI data centres from Telus (powered by Nvidia), and Apple’s delayed intelligence.
The BetaKit Quiz — This week: Google eyes AdHawk, Nvidia’s Canadian partner, and a red light for Tesla
Think you’re on top of Canadian tech and innovation news? Time to prove it. Test your knowledge of Canadian tech news with The BetaKit Quiz for March 21, 2025.
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Feature image courtesy Socratica’s Freeman Jiang.