For years, Neatco Engineering has built a reputation on robotic precision. Based in Ontario, the company develops robotics that sort recyclables and support the circular economy.
But today, AI is rewriting the rules of how industries operate, and Neatco is among the legacy leaders planning to be part of that change.
“Our job is to help each company build the AI muscle it needs to grow.”
Garry Chan, ventureLAB
The firm is taking advantage of ventureLAB’s facility and AI services through the Critical Industrial Technologies (CIT) Development and Commercialization program.
As a CIT Technology Development Site, ventureLAB, in partnership with the Ontario Centre of Innovation, is accelerating Neatco’s next phase of business.
Unlike accelerators focused on early-stage startups, the CIT initiative targets Ontario businesses that already have customers, data, and operations, but need support integrating critical technologies – 5G, AI, blockchain, cybersecurity, quantum, and robotics – into existing workflows to grow and scale. ventureLAB aims to provide an all-in-one solution for companies building internal AI capacity or developing AI technologies for market.
CIT focuses on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in key sectors like advanced manufacturing, construction, agri-food and mining. These industries power much of Canada’s economic activity, but have been slower to adopt AI.
Garry Chan, chief AI officer at ventureLAB, believes companies like Neatco represent an often-overlooked part of the innovation story.
“They already know automation and robotics inside out, but scaling with AI requires a different skill set. We’re helping them take that next step,” Chan said.
For many SMEs, that “next step” is the toughest of all – what ventureLAB calls the “last mile” of AI adoption.
Moving from experimentation to execution takes time, compute power and confidence, and ventureLAB’s program is closing that gap by providing the resources, tools, and deep expertise.
Inside ventureLAB’s 50,000-square-foot innovation space, participants get access to $12 million in prototyping and testing labs, including the new AI Compute Lab – a high-performance environment with advanced GPUs, servers and tools for training and validating models.
An accompanying AI Toolbox gives teams access to curated datasets, pre-trained models and data-governance resources, along with up to 10 to 15 hours a month of technical support, business mentorship and commercialization guidance.
Chan compares the setup to a gym.
“We have the playbook. We have the trainers and the equipment,” he added. “Our job is to help each company build the AI muscle it needs to grow.”
Chan says the program addresses challenges that cut across industries. Whether participants are deploying cameras on construction sites, humidity sensors in greenhouses, or fault-detection systems on factory floors, they face similar hurdles.
“They’re all collecting data from the field, sending it to the cloud for AI training, then deploying those capabilities back to the edge,” he explained.
By bringing companies together, ventureLAB is building what Chan calls a “service layer” made up of collective expertise that prevents each company from reinventing the wheel.
“These companies are all asking similar questions about data governance, compute optimization, deployment strategies,” he said. “If we can help them answer these questions at scale, they can go off and do great things.”
Early participants are already putting that support to work. Neatco is exploring how AI can boost recognition speed, decision accuracy, and data management on its production line. According to Tony Sandhu, product manager at Neatco, the startup envisions AI developing AI “assistants” that use language and vision models to monitor production, catch defects automatically, and reduce material waste.
Another participant of the CIT Development and Commercialization program, Khalsa Packaging, a major supplier of flexible produce packaging, is developing an AI-powered colour-matching system to automate ink formulation and reduce waste. Masterly is building an AI-driven ESG intelligence project designed to accelerate sustainability within the agri-food industry.
For Chan, these early projects demonstrate the practical side of the program.
“When companies start experimenting with data and automation, they open up opportunities to innovate and compete in new ways,” he said.
The program runs up to six months. Eligible SMEs are supported by the CIT initiative and onboarded at ventureLAB with customized project plans. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.
“Ontario’s industrial companies are the backbone of our economy, and AI is critical to strengthening that advantage,” said Claudia Krywiak, President and CEO of the Ontario Centre of Innovation (OCI). “Through Ontario’s Critical Industrial Technologies initiative and partners like ventureLAB, OCI is helping emerging and established companies harness the power of AI to drive growth and enhance global competitiveness. Together, we’re ensuring that homegrown businesses lead the AI revolution, not follow it.”
According to ventureLAB, more than 4,200 companies have been supported by their programs and services , creating over 7,000 jobs and attracting more than $480 million in investment across its network to date. Furthermore, the CIT Initiative has supported over 194 Ontario companies with $55.8M of investment into Critical Technology adoption and commercialization.
“This initiative is about equipping Ontario’s SMEs with the infrastructure and expertise needed to compete globally in AI,” said Sep Assadian, VP of Founder Success at ventureLAB. “By combining advanced compute resources with deep commercialization support, we’re enabling companies to move from concept to market with speed and impact.”
Chan believes these early steps are the start of something bigger.
“We need to create an environment where we can have a hundred companies vying for global domination, vying for global growth, vying for a global customer base,” he said. “It’s about creating a community of builders who are ready to take Canada’s industrial strengths into the AI era.”
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Photos provided by ventureLAB.