Kelowna’s Pela, maker of world’s first compostable phone case, has closed a $5 million funding round of funding. Marcy Venture Partners (MVP), the consumer focused VC fund co-founded by JAY-Z, Jay Brown, and Larry Marcus led the round with Toronto-based Kensington Capital. Pela was founded in 2011 by environmental consultant, Jeremy Lang after a family […]
Growth on Grammarly’s Mind as it Raises $90 Million
On the heels of their announcement of opening of a new office in Vancouver, Grammarly, the company behind the AI-powered digital writing assistant used by more than 20 million people daily, today announced it has received $90 million in its latest round of funding. CEO Brad Hoover said the fresh capital, which brings Grammarly’s total […]
Cascadia Champion Voyager Capital Raises $100 Million in Fifth Fund
Voyager Capital has raised $100 million to fuel innovation in the Cascadia market. The fund, Voyager’s fifth, will power first-round investments in B2B startups across cloud infrastructure, software as a service (SaaS), and vertical markets such as FinTech, MediaTech, and AgTech. The firm has already closed five new investments. The West Coast venture capital firm […]
Anandia Opens State-of-the-Art Cannabis Testing HQ in Vancouver
Anandia Laboratories opened a new state-of-the-art cannabis testing headquarters in Vancouver today. Voted the Top Testing Lab at the 2017 Canadian Cannabis Awards, Anandia provides the full suite of testing services required under Canada’s Cannabis Act for licensed production of cannabis, and also develops and offers a number of other tools that may be used […]
Rise People Partners with Planswell to Boost Employee Financial Wellness
Rise People has announced a strategic partnership with Planswell, a fintech startup that creates no-cost, intelligent financial plans to help people align their investments, insurance, and mortgage needs with their personal goals. The partnership will allow Rise to expand its employee health and wellness offering to help companies build better, more engaging workplaces. With Planswell, […]
Tiny Capital Acquires Open Source Platform Meteor From Apollo
Victoria’s Tiny Capital has acquired Meteor, a popular open source app and development platform overseen by San Francisco’s Apollo. Using a single codebase, Meteor’s JavaScript App Platform radically simplifies coding for developers building reactive, multi-device experiences for servers, browsers, and mobile devices. “I’m grateful to welcome the Tiny team as the new corporate stewards of the […]
T&T Supermarket Now Accepting Alipay and WeChat Pay
T&T Supermarket now accepts mobile-based payment platforms Alipay and WeChat Pay thanks to Richmond fintech AlphaPay. AlphaPay today announced the national integration of its mobile payment technology into Canada’s largest Asian supermarket chain. The integration will enable T&T’s 27 locations to better serve the growing Asian consumer demographic and provide the most convenient payment method […]
Ag Innovator Terramera Wins US $1 Million at Nutrien-Radicle Challenge
Vancouver’s Terramera has won a US $1 million prize in the growth-stage category in the Nutrien-Radicle Challenge. The Nutrien-Radicle Challenge Canada was created to encourage and accelerate ag and food technology innovation in Canada. More than 100 of Canada’s most ambitious agriculture and food technology innovators applied, with eight finalists pitching to a panel of […]
High-Speed Rail Feasibility Study to be Completed by 2020
Business, academic, non-profit, and government leaders from B.C., Washington state and Oregon met today at the fourth annual Cascadia Innovation Corridor Conference to discuss a 2035 vision for the Cascadia region. Since 2016 the Cascadia Innovation Corridor Steering Committee has been advancing a broad array of projects in the region in areas such as transportation, […]
B.C.’s First Quantum Computing Institute Comes to Surrey
The B.C. government has taken its first step in building an innovation corridor in Surrey with the announcement of a new Quantum Algorithms Institute at Simon Fraser University’s Surrey campus. With affordability and access to industrial land constraining growth in B.C.’s tech sector, the announcement builds on the government’s vision to promote the City of […]