Vancouver’s FORM has added heart-rate monitoring to its $200 augmented reality goggles that let swimmers track their lap-swimming data. Today the sports tech startup announced the release of a free firmware update for the FORM Swim Goggles that enables support for Polar’s optical heart rate monitors, giving swimmers the unprecedented ability to view their real-time […]
ACUVA Technologies Wins New Product Innovation Award
Frost & Sullivan has recognized Vancouver’s ACUVA Technologies with the 2019 Global New Product Innovation Award for its IntenseBeam™ optical lensing technology. Acuva’s IntenseBeam technology is featured in its Strike UV-LED Module Platform for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), as well as Acuva’s consumer UV-LED water purification systems – the Arrow and Eco series of products. […]
Picovoice Unveils Platform for Building Voice Assistants Without the Cloud
Following the launch of its real-time speech recognition engine that can run offline anywhere, Vancouver AI startup Picovoice has announced a new platform that lets you easily create and train your own voice models. Picovoice’s new web console supports training universal wake words and domain-specific natural language understanding (NLU) skills that run entirely offline—even on […]
BCIT Launches Electric Vehicle Maintenance Training Program
Vancouver will have a new electric vehicle (EV) training program for automotive technicians in 2020. The EV Maintenance Training Program at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) has successfully completed its first pilot and will be available as a part-time studies course in the new year. The newly developed program will make sure the […]
Crowdsourcing Intelligence Platform Thoughtexchange Closes $20 Million Round
Thoughtexchange announced today it has secured a $20 million Series B financing round led by Information Venture Partners with participation from existing investor Yaletown Partners and new investor Voyager Capital. Thoughtexchange’s cloud-based SaaS platform allows leaders to crowdsource answers to open-ended questions in real-time. It is used by leaders at hundreds of companies such as […]
Chrysalix Announces Second Close For RoboValley Fund
Chrysalix Venture Capital has announced the second close of its Chrysalix RoboValley Fund. The Chrysalix RoboValley Fund invests in Industry 4.0 applications that improve industrial processes, resource efficiency and environmental sustainability in industries such as energy, mining, mobility, construction, chemicals and materials, and manufacturing. New investors Caterpillar Inc., J-POWER, and South32 are joining existing investors […]
Victoria’s Shift Closes $1 Million Seed Round and Appoints a CEO
Victoria’s Shift today announced the close of a $1 million seed round and the appointment of former General Manager, Nadia Tatlow, to the role of CEO. The financing round was led by Panache Ventures and includes $500,000 in debt financing from Shift’s parent company Redbrick. Shift is a productivity platform that enables a beautiful and […]
Amazon Rolls Out Quantum-Computing Service With D-Wave Systems
Burnaby’s D-Wave Systems has announced the expansion of the Leap™ API into Amazon Braket, a new, fully managed Amazon Web Services (AWS) solution that allows scientists, researchers, and developers to begin experimenting with computers from quantum hardware providers in a single place. The service, announced this week at AWS re:Invent 2019, will give global Amazon Web […]
Vision Critical Appoints New CEO and President of Products
Vision Critical announced today that it has appointed Ross Wainwright as their new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Riaz Raihan as President of Products. CEO Scott Miller has stepped down and remains on the Vision Critical Board of Directors where Wainwright will also take a seat. Since Vision Critical’s capital restructuring in 2017, Miller successfully […]
Vancouver’s APOLLO wins 2019 Digital Innovator of the Year
Vancouver-born insurtech APOLLO Exchange took home the trophy for Digital Innovator of the Year at the 4th annual Insurance Business Canada Awards last week, beating out eleven other contenders for the top prize. The Digital Innovator of the Year was given to the organization that had best harnessed technology and digital solutions to improve their […]