Since returning from Andreessen Horowitz’s accelerator program last summer, the founders of Toronto-based OpenSesame have found a new niche and a new identity. “What we’ve been focusing on is customer engagement, where we think insurance is pretty broken, especially for Gen Z.” Jai Mansukhani,General Magic Co-founders Jai Mansukhani and Anthony Azrak announced Tuesday that they…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM We already know working out is good for your heart, your waistline, and your mental state. But it turns out it might also give your cells a leg up in the fight against cancer. And no, we’re not talking about hours at the gym or grueling boot camps. According…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Stopping life-threatening bleeding often comes down to a matter of seconds. Now, scientists in South Korea may have found a way to tip the balance in favor of survival. Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), in partnership with the South Korean military, developed a…
Canadian SaaS platforms have spent years moving deeper into their customers’ financial workflows, but lending is harder to pull off. “When platforms send customers elsewhere for financial products, they’re leaving both value and revenue on the table.” Scott Elliot, Slate Outside of a handful of platforms with the scale or balance sheets to support it,…
OpenText has inked its second business unit sale within five months, this time selling off its analytics business Vertica to US-based Rocket Software for $150 million USD ($205 million CAD) in cash. The sale process is part of what the company calls a focus on its core business: information management for AI. OpenText provides a…
A new platform designed by Canadian tech veterans Ali Asaria and Tony Salomone today announced a successful fundraising round that coincides with the platform’s worldwide launch. Transformer Lab, designed to streamline research into artificial intelligence (AI) by replacing outdated, sometimes decades-old operating systems with a unified, modern operating system, announced a successful pre-seed fundraising round…
Frederic Lalonde and Dax Dasilva, two notable figures of Montréal’s tech scene, had somehow barely met before they entered the green room. “If everything has to go through you, it’s not a scalable system.” Frederic LalondeHopper But on stage at North Star in Montréal on Thursday they traded jokes like old friends as they unpacked…
This week, we’re talking about the small terms-of-service change that sent shockwaves across Canadian tech after it was revealed that Y Combinator, a globally prominent US technology accelerator, will no longer directly invest in Canadian-domiciled startups. “It’s important for the success of Y Combinator to see people investing at a very, very early stage. And…
Two big-name investors have severed ties with Gander Social just one day before the prospective Canadian social media company was set to close its crowdfunding campaign. On Thursday, entrepreneur, investor, and Dragons’ Den star Arlene Dickinson and entrepreneur and media personality Amber Mac both posted on LinkedIn that they are no longer involved with Gander…
Higher internet speeds are coming to tens of thousands of Alberta households after the federal and provincial governments announced 27 new broadband projects on Friday. “Every corner of Alberta should have access to reliable, affordable high-speed internet.” Announced outside of Edmonton in the nearby hamlet of Ardrossan, Alta., the new projects will bring internet access…
