The price of admission for Canadian entrepreneurs

In entrepreneurship, ambition is the price of admission.

My favourite definition of an entrepreneur comes via LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman: someone willing to jump off a cliff and build an airplane on the way down. You can’t do that without ambition.

But ambition is often an uncomfortable topic for Canadians. We spend a lot of time discussing our collective willingness to “go for gold.” The president of Canada’s largest tech company once called ambition the 600-pound beaver in the room and it caused a stir.

I’m here to tell you the beaver isn’t real. And I can prove it.

Today, we release the inaugural issue of BetaKit Most Ambitious, an annual edition telling stories of bold ambition in Canadian tech. It’s chock-full of Canadian ambition big and small, at home and abroad.

Most Ambitious is the product of BetaKit’s ambition: telling stories of Canadian entrepreneurs and innovators is what we do.

In February, I deputized you to help identify Canadian tech’s most ambitious, and boy howdy did you deliver. BetaKit received more than 500 recommendations pointing us to ambitious Canadian organizations and individuals. For every selection included in the issue, we worked hard to explain their ambition and why it matters.

Inevitably, there are many worthy Canadians not found in this year’s Most Ambitious. It’s encouraging to think that the ambitions of Canadian tech cannot be captured or contained in any single issue. It makes me excited to work on next year’s issue—there are so many more stories to be told.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Those attending Toronto Tech Week can exclusively nab a Most Ambitious print edition (check out our guide below for more details). Everyone else can read the digital version by heading to BetaKit.com.

If you score a print edition, send us a photo of you holding it. If you see a BetaKitten at Toronto Tech Week, come say hi. We can’t wait to hear what you think.

Douglas Soltys
Editor-in-chief

Build on your terms with OVHcloud

OVHcloud provides transparent, sovereign cloud solutions that let you build and scale without vendor lock-in or hidden fees. With more than 80 services available, you have the flexibility to shape your infrastructure the way you need, supported by data centres in Canada and 44 locations around the world.

Whether you’re launching your first product or expanding an existing platform, OVHcloud gives you control over your digital journey, with reliable performance and clear, predictable pricing.

Explore the possibilities at ovhcloud.com.

The BetaKit Guide: Toronto Tech Week

Unlike other tech happenings, this five-day unconference is community-designed, with over 300 events organized directly by builders, investors, boosters, and ecosystem heavyweights to meet the needs and priorities of the sector. That’s a lot, so we made The BetaKit Guide: Toronto Tech Week 2025 to help you navigate it all.

As the official media partner of Toronto Tech Week, BetaKit will also deliver the coverage you need to see.

Like this exclusive interview with Toronto Tempo president Teresa Resch ahead of her talk at Homecoming, Toronto Tech Week’s sold-out mainstage event. Read on to understand why the Tempo “is a startup in every way,” and learn how Resch intends to use tech to give Canada’s first WNBA team a competitive advantage.

G7 leaders conclude summit with commitments on AI and quantum

The leaders of Group of Seven (G7) nations reached consensus on a “common vision” for the future of quantum technologies and recognized the “potential” for AI to grow prosperity at the annual summit, held this year in Kananaskis, Alta.

The G7 leaders outlined their shared priorities and commitments in joint statements, as the Prime Minister’s Office highlighted Canada’s financial backing for each of the areas.

AI startup Cohere and quantum startup Photonic took advantage of the festivities and got some facetime with G7 leaders this week. Cohere now has partnerships with the Canadian and United Kingdom (UK) governments as it expands its offerings beyond enterprise AI into the public sector, while Photonic announced it will establish a research and development facility in the UK.

Toronto-Waterloo, Vancouver, Ottawa drop in Startup Genome’s 2025 global ecosystem rankings as Montréal, Calgary hold steady

Startup Genome’s latest global startup ecosystem rankings have found that some of Canada’s largest technology hubs have lost ground since last year, while others have remained strong amid a tough fundraising environment.

The results indicated that Vancouver, Toronto-Waterloo, and Ottawa have some room for improvement. According to the report, one of the common denominators was weak startup funding, as all three plus Montréal scored relatively poorly by this metric. Calgary was the only exception.

Storytime Capital holds $14-million first close of Fund II to back more startups modernizing work

Toronto-based early-stage VC firm Storytime Capital held the first close of its second fund this week, securing more than $14 million CAD in commitments amid what remains a particularly challenging VC fundraising environment, especially for emerging managers.

Storytime ultimately aims to close $25 million to $30 million for Fund II over the next year to back 20 pre-seed and seed-stage tech companies building what co-founder and managing partner Neil Grunberg described as “the future of work.”

“Our children won’t work the same way, with the same tools that we worked with, and we’re leaning into that opportunity,” Grunberg told BetaKit in an exclusive interview.

BrainBox AI CEO Sam Ramadori joins Yoshua Bengio’s LawZero as co-president and executive director

LawZero has appointed Sam Ramadori as co-president and executive director as the non-profit gears up to develop safe-by-design AI systems. Consequently, Ramadori is departing as CEO of recently acquired Montréal cleantech startup BrainBox AI.

Ramadori joins co-president, scientific director, and LawZero founder Yoshua Bengio. The organization said its co-presidency structure combines Bengio’s scientific leadership with Ramadori’s strategic and operational expertise.

In Ramadori’s absence, co-founder and CTO Jean-Simon Venne has been appointed as the head of BrainBox AI under its new parent company Trane Technologies.

Chris Greenfield is no longer the managing director of OneEleven

Chris Greenfield is no longer the managing director of Toronto-based innovation hub OneEleven, BetaKit has learned. After a 10-month search to fill his position, Greenfield lasted just over a year at tech hub’s helm.

“Sometimes things just don’t fit the way you hoped they would,” Greenfield told BetaKit. “OCI does important work funding innovation across Ontario, but in the end, our visions just weren’t aligned.”

FCAC commissioner shares update on Canada’s open banking future, but makes no timeline commitments

The commissioner of the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC), Shereen Benzvy Miller, provided FinTech leaders with a progress update on the country’s open banking plan this week, indicating the federal government is moving ahead with the much-delayed policy.

In an address at the Open Banking Expo on Tuesday, Benzvy Miller revealed that FCAC is working on a consumer awareness strategy, an accreditation process, and common rules for open banking’s implementation.

“We envision a future—not too far off—where consumers can securely share their financial data with trusted providers at the tap of a button,” she said.

StatsCan finds AI adoption has doubled in businesses, but hasn’t yet affected headcounts

The amount of Canadian businesses using AI to produce goods or deliver services doubled between May 2024 and May 2025, according to a new survey from Statistics Canada, but the technology’s effect on company headcount has yet to materialize.

The survey found that many businesses do not consider AI investment to be required for their operation, with 41.2 percent reporting it to be “not relevant.”

Given the survey’s sample time period, the ever-increasing presence of AI-first policies adopted by companies like Shopify and OpenText, this year has yet to be captured.

Canada’s digital sovereignty: why we can’t ignore stablecoins

In an op-ed for BetaKit, Coinbase Canada CEO Lucas Matheson argues that, without real action, Canada will depend on foreign stablecoin infrastructure rather than building a strong domestic ecosystem.

“Canadians will increasingly turn to US-denominated stablecoins, eroding the Canadian dollar’s relevance in everyday transactions,” Matheson writes.

🇨🇦 Weekly Canadian Deals, Dollars & More

SF – Canadian-founded AppDirect acquires Quebec energy brokerage
VAN – Former Graphite analyst to launch new incubator Althra
CGY – Carbon Upcycling closes $24.5M convertible note round
TOR – Clean water startup Xatoms raises $3M pre-seed round
TOR – New School Foods expands to other meat alternatives
TOR – Nick Chen promoted to partner at Golden Ventures
TOR – June Health launches menopause platform
OTT – Vista Equity Partners increases its stake in Assent
MTL – David Dufresne joins AQC Capital as investment partner

The BetaKit Podcast – InBC’s Jill Earthy knows Canadian VC “could be healthier”

“ That’s what we wanna change, right? For future companies, more Canadian investors on the cap table so that we can see those benefits come back through investment, through mentorship, through restarting.”

Jill Earthy, CEO of InBC Investment Corp—a provincial Crown corporation with $500 million of direct and indirect capital to deploy—joins to discuss the state of Canadian venture, the role of organizations like hers in BC’s growing tech ecosystem, and InBC’s future fundraising plans. Recorded live at Web Summit Vancouver.

Take The BetaKit Quiz – This week: Cohere’s new MOU, New School Foods’ new food, and BetaKit’s Most Ambitious

Think you’re on top of Canadian tech and innovation news? Time to prove it. Test your knowledge with The BetaKit Quiz for June 20, 2025.

Cover design courtesy Gev Design.

FEATURED STORIES FROM OUR PARTNERS

🇨🇦 Weekly Canadian Deals, Dollars & More