In 2016, Statistics Canada estimated that 1.6 million households sent at least $500 internationally to relatives and friends. To date, the options to do so have been limited, expensive – due to poor exchange rates and high fees – and time-consuming. Thanks to Central 1, it’s getting a bit easier to send money to loved […]
News
Baseball Legend Invests in Vancouver Startup
Vancouver’s Fitplan, a personal training app that connects its members to world-class trainers for their workout plans and, is teaming up with a group of prominent investors: baseball great Alex Rodriguez, VC fund Corazon Capital, and fitness mogul Mark Mastrov. The USD $4.5 million funding round was co-led by Corazon Capital, a VC fund that […]
London Drugs Successfully Tests Drone Delivery of Emergency Medications
Maybe drone deliveries aren’t that far off? Last month Canada Post, in partnership with London Drugs and InDro Robotics, successfully completed Canada’s first-ever Beyond Visual Line-of-Sight (BVLOS) flight carrying pharmaceuticals via drone from a London Drugs pharmacy to Salt Spring Island. Canada Post was selected along with InDro Robotics to participate in Transport Canada’s BVLOS […]
Terramera Raises $45 million To Reduce the Use of Chemicals in Agriculture
Terramera announced today it has raised US$45 million in equity funding to advance its Actigate™ Targeted Performance technology. Terramera is a cleantech leader focused on fusing AI, science and nature to create revolutionary technologies that transform how we grow food and solve other world-scale challenges. The Series B round was led by new investor Ospraie […]
Clio Raises $333 Million in Largest Growth-Stage Transaction in Canadian History
Burnaby’s Clio announced today that they have raised USD $250 million in the largest growth-stage transaction in Canada’s history. The Series D round, led by US growth-equity firms TCV and JMI Equity illustrates their confidence that Clio will lead the legal tech market and that the legal tech industry is the next industry to watch. […]
Picovoice’s Speech Recognition Brings Cloud-level Accuracy to Edge Devices
Vancouver AI startup Picovoice announced today that they have developed the world’s first real-time speech recognition engine that can run offline anywhere. Voice user interfaces like Amazon Transcribe make it easy for developers to add speech-to-text capability to their applications thanks to cloud-based Speech recognition services. Despite the ubiquity of speech-enabled devices, processing speech in […]
Local Tech Design Grad Wins Award for Jacket that keeps Cyclists safe from Autonomous Vehicles
A Wilson School of Design at Kwantlen Polytechnic University technical apparel graduate has won bronze at the 2019 IDEA International Design Conference in Chicago. Philip Siwek’s winning entry is an innovative cycling jacket lets self-driving cars detect cyclists on the road. Siwek recently graduated from KPU and submitted his capstone project for the award. Siwek’s […]
BrainStation Launches Income Sharing Agreements in Vancouver
Just in time for their fall cohort, BrainStation has added income sharing agreements to its payment and financing plan options in Vancouver, allowing students to defer payment until they are employed and earning a minimum level of income. Capitalizing on the income share trend in the digital skills training space, BrainStation is the first educational […]
FORM and Polar to Bring Heart Rate to Augmented Reality Swim Goggles
Vancouver’s FORM has announced that their augmented reality swim goggles will support Polar heart rate technology starting in November 2019, enabling a level of training effectiveness and precision never before experienced by swimmers. The FORM Swim Goggles are a pair of premium swim goggles with a see-through, augmented-reality display that delivers performance metrics in real […]
ePACT Network closes $4.5 Million Series A Round
According to PE Hub Canada, emergency preparedness and communications solution ePACT Network has closed a $4.5 million Series A financing round co-led by Disruption Ventures and Yaletown Ventures. While Yaletown was a previous ePACT investor, this is the first Canadian investment for Disruption Ventures. Disruption launched in 2018 by Elaine Kunda to invest in North […]