Meet BC's 12th $1B+ business in 10 months
Welcome to a special Monday edition of our weekly briefing.
Good morning everyone. Hurry. Make sure you read this email right away. Don’t leave it until later. Trust me. Once you’ve finished your second family-or-Friendsgiving meal of the weekend and the food-coma starts to hit, you will not — I repeat not — have the attention span for this. “Why’s that?” you ask. Well, in this week’s issue, we’ve shared a whopping 46 stories, including multiple, long features that you don’t want to miss. It’s time to loosen your mental belt buckle — because like a proper Thanksgiving dinner, there is a lot to digest here.
Anyway, today I have 1,538 words for you, a 5 + 1/2-minute read. Enjoy!
Last Week’s Top Stories
🏒 A professional hockey career took Kenndal McArdle from Vancouver to Västerås. Venture capital brought him back.
In this special feature, the Pender Ventures principal reflects on his passion for finance, life and hockey in Sweden, plus what the future holds for venture capital in Western Canada. » Start reading.
Active Impact Investments added Export Development Canada (EDC) as a limited partner (LP) for its second climate tech fund, Fund II.
The firm originally announced in July an oversubscribed fund of $54 million with a group of LPs that included Fondaction Pension Fund, Vancity, the University of Victoria’s working capital fund, Hamilton Community Foundation and clients of Genus Capital Management. EDC is chipping in $5.88 million, making it the largest and final LP in Fund II. » Keep reading.
“When we started, there wasn't even a term like [creator economy.]” — Phoebe Jiang is transforming how creators share their work.
As a student, Jiang read TechCrunch “religiously.” Now, she’s leading a pioneering tech company in Pixieset. » Start reading.
🌎 19 BC cleantech leaders to know ahead of VEF’s clean growth event.
In advance of the upcoming Vancouver Entrepreneurs’ Forum session Clean Growth Stories: Lessons from Leaders Capturing the Climate Opportunity, we’re spotlighting 19 BC-based sustainability leaders, as recognized by Clean50.com. » Get the list.
ICYMI: Vancouver’s TrafficDriven Technologies Inc. has been announced as the winner of the 2021 New Ventures BC Competition, taking home the $110,000 Innovate BC First Place Prize Package.
Vancouver’s Train Fitness claimed the $60,000 Innovate BC Second Place Prize Package and cleantech startup Moment Energy rounded out the top three and walked away with $35,000. » Get the full list.
🏆 The Techies: New Ventures BC Competition’s 21st year, the pros and cons of hybrid events and the celebration of an ecosystem.
The tweets you may have missed while you brushed up on last night’s winners. » Time to catch up.
👩🏻💼 ICYMI: After 21 years, NVBC executive director Angie Schick is ready for her close-up. The head of the New Ventures BC Competition reflects on more than two decades fueling BC entrepreneurial success. » Read the story.
⏩ Quick takes.
🏥 Medtech: BC’s first ultra-high magnification microscope allows surgery to fix lymphedema, a type of cancer.
📡 Signal strength: TransLink rolled out free Wi-Fi for select SkyTrains, busses and stations.
Checking in: Mental health platform looking to help people through the pandemic and beyond.
🤝 Funding and deals.
Damon Motors, which has developed an electric motorcycle, is receiving $400,000 from the CleanBC Go Electric ARC program for its modular electric vehicle (EV) powertrain system.
The company broke ground at its new clean-tech manufacturing, research and development facility in Surrey on Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021. The facility will introduce a cleaner, industry-leading manufacturing process and is expected to create more than 500 new jobs. » Learn more.
📰 Vancouver’s Copperleaf, a decision analytics company, went public on the TSX at a valuation of more than $1 billion, making it the 12th BC business to hit that milestone since last December.
“The $140-million offering – the first tech IPO on the TSX since July – received strong demand from investors, drawing $1.4-billion in pre-issue orders… That was more than 10 times the initial offering size of $125-million,” reported the Globe and Mail.
Dapper Labs has acquired Sequoia-backed Brud to form Dapper Collectives with the goal of bringing decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) to Flow Blockchain. » What Dapper’s CEO had to say.
Fobi AI Inc has agreed to acquire PassWallet, an app for managing and utilizing wallet passes on Android phones. » More at Proactive.
Tribe Property Technologies Inc. has partnered with Eddy Solutions to bring an IoT-powered suite of smart water monitoring devices to its digital ecosystem. » Details.
WELL Health’s CRH Medical Corporation completed two majority stake acquisitions for 70% of Destin Anesthesia and 51% of Pinellas County Anesthesia Associates. » Get the nitty-gritty.
Big Whale Labs a web3 startup, raised $655,000 in pre-seed funding led by Slow Ventures with participation from Samsung Next, Intonation Ventures, NFT Investments PLC, and multiple angel investors. » Read the release.
🗞️ In other news…
Hive Blockchain said fiscal first-quarter profit climbed to $18.6 million from $1.8 million in the year-earlier period. » Run the numbers.
Imagine AR Inc., which develops tech to allow organizations to create instant global AR mobile phone campaigns without a technical background, launched two new product platforms designed to deliver fan and consumer experiential engagements. (Go deeper: Vancouver-based Imagine AR brings Brazilian soccer stars to their fans)
Clio announced the five 2021 Launch//Code Developer Contest finalists who will compete for the $100,000 grand prize at the 9th annual Clio Cloud Conference happening October 26-29. » Here they are.
Spring, an impact accelerator, announced its top 20 companies for its Fall Impact Investor Challenge. » Meet them.
Kim Dwyer left CIBC to join crypto trading platform Netcoins as chief operating officer.
💡 Ideas and insights.
Maria Pacella, managing partner at Pender Ventures, writing on her firm’s blog about her experience working with portfolio company Teradici: Where credit is due
Annalea Krebs, CEO of Social Nature, writing on LinkedIn: Profiting with Purpose - Celebrating 6 Years into Building an Impact Business
Sean Herman, CEO of Kinzoo, writing in Techcrunch: Facebook should cancel Instagram Kids, not put it on ‘pause’
Greg Smith, CEO of Thinkific, writing in Forbes: What Corporate Offices Can Learn From The Co-Working Space Boom
Roger Patterson, CEO of Later, writing in Inc: 3 Reasons to Reconsider the Branding Power of TikTok, From a Gen-X Skeptic
Ayelen Osorio, content marketer at Netcoins, writing on her blog: Why Bitcoin Speaks to Me as an Indigenous-Descent Woman
🌐 More BC tech headlines from around the web.
FORM Swim in Mashable: Like Peloton, but…in the pool? Guided swim workouts are here.
lululemon in WWD: Lululemon’s Mirror Sets Up Shop in Canada
Hootsuite, Appnovation and AbCellera in Business in Vancouver: C-suite retreat seen as real risk for B.C.’s economy
Netcoins in Montecristo: The Year We Started to Pay Attention to Bitcoin
D-Wave in Fortune: D-Wave took its own path in quantum computing. Now it’s joining the crowd
BuildDirect in Globe and Mail: Define a need, find a solution: key to startup success
Dapper Labs in Morning Brew: Agencies are figuring out how to safely guide brands through the wild world of NFTs and Decrypt: Dapper Labs Took NFTs Mainstream, Now It Wants to Do the Same for DAOs
Amazon in Western Investor: Amazon all in on back-to-the office
Beanworks/Quadient in PYMNTS.com: Quadient Rolls Out Upgrade to Help SMBs Shift to Digital
Hootsuite in Vancouver Sun: Hootsuite's flagship office in Vancouver reconfigured to envision post-COVID future of work
Autozen in Driving.ca: Autozen and the art of selling your used car
🎧 Watch and listen.
Dan Eisenhardt, FORM Swim CEO, joined Bob Babbitt to discuss his background as a competitive swimmer and his smart AR goggles company.
Kenshi Arasaki, CEO and co-founder of a thinking ape, joined the Hello Metaverse podcast to discuss creating traction for games, virtual economies, and digital ownership, among other topics.
Matt Smith, chief strategy officer at Thinkific, joined the Afternoon “T” podcast to discuss being a serial entrepreneur and building successful SaaS companies.
Victoria Niemiets, operations coordinator at TTT Studios, joined the Afternoon “T” podcast to discuss her role at TTT Studios and what makes her tick.
Invest in Canada released a video about what makes Vancouver a global hub for video game development.
Raghwa Gopal, president and CEO of Innovate BC, joined the Unleashed Podcast to discuss his journey from being an entrepreneur to a community leader in the startup ecosystem.
📅 See you soon at these events.
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TechTOgether is back in Vancouver and they are bringing Vancouver’s tech leaders, innovators, and enthusiasts together to meet, learn and grow — in person. Join me and other Innovators for an evening of great conversation, and learning on October 20th. REGISTER HERE.
Have you heard? SAAS NORTH is back this November 17-18 in Ottawa. Early Bird tix are on until Oct 14 and you can save an additional 25% with the code VTJ25—run, don’t walk to grab your tickets.