Vancouver’s Sanctuary has received a $30 million SIF (Strategic Innovation Fund) contribution from the Government of Canada to advance its technology and address labor-related challenges in the economy. Sanctuary has now received more than $100 million in funding since its founding in 2018. Earlier this year Sanctuary raised $75 million in an oversubscribed Series A round which […]
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Genome BC and Protocols.io to Advance Scientific Methods in Canada
In a move to improve research method storage and sharing, Genome British Columbia this week announced that they are partnering with protocols.io to provide access for funded researchers to the protocols.io platform, which was built for developing and sharing reproducible methods. Protocols.io was originally funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and supported by […]
Mozilla Acquires Vancouver’s Active Replica
Mozilla announced today that it has acquired Vancouver’s Active Replica. Active Replica creates virtual spaces and events that allow for true to life communication through conversation, movement, activities and entertainment. The news comes just as Mozilla Hubs launched first public beta of its new subscription service earlier this week, which allows users to create and launch new, […]
The Tech Sector is in a Downturn – What Should Tech Entrepreneurs Do?
After the longest bull market on record – almost 14 years – the NASDAQ reversed course at the beginning of 2022 and continued to slide for months, losing about 33% of its peak value. The M&A market fared somewhat better: Global M&A was down 27% in the first half of 2022 compared to 2021 but […]
Fully Managed Team Raises $6 Million For Workforce Analytics App Produce8
Vancouver SaaS startup Produce8 has raised a $6 million funding round to accelerate growth of their workforce analytics application that helps remote and digital-first teams work better together. Co-founded and backed by Chris Day — the co-founder of IT Glue, Fully Managed and ScalePad — along with Mark Scott, and Joel Abramson both from Fully […]
Vancouver Tech Experts on How to Navigate Layers of the Digital Realm
The digitization of everything is well underway, with an increasing percentage of everyone’s lives—both personal and work—being online. Today, “online” can mean a lot more than it used to. There was a time when we might have a computer at work, and maybe one at home, and even then, we were not always online. Now […]
Plug and Play Hosts First Major Event In Vancouver
Silicon Valley-born Plug and Play is expanding across Canada and have British Columbia in their scope. To kick off their plans in Vancouver, the global innovation platform is hosting their first event in the city bringing together industry leading startups, major corporations looking to innovate, the government, and investors to build collaboration within the local […]
BC Attracts Third-Most Investment in Q3 as Seed-Stage Startups See Most Deals
$900 million of venture capital dollars were invested across 144 deals in the third quarter of 2022, bringing the year-to-date total above $7 billion invested across more than 500 deals as investment “continues to normalize to pre-pandemic levels,” according to the latest quarterly report from the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association. “Canada’s VC […]
Connecting The Dots: November 2022
Each month, the team at Switchboard Public Relations connects the dots between the trends, headlines and narratives informing the B.C. tech sector. For November’s Connecting The Dots, the team breaks down recent funding announcements and multimillion-dollar M&A action, highlights awards wins across the B.C. tech ecosystem, and provides resources for those impacted by layoffs. Cleantech […]
Five Island Startups That Reflect Victoria’s Growing Entrepreneurship
The Victoria Tech Community Awards are back with more nominations and finalists than ever before. From nearly 200 nominations, 59 finalists from 47 companies were selected across 10 award categories. The growth of the Victoria Tech Community Awards reflects the momentum of Vancouver Island as a source of entrepreneurship in BC. Historically the island has not […]