AI giant Anthropic is investing in Canadian AI research through partnerships with leading universities and the nation’s federally backed AI institutes. “Access to Anthropic’s models is a powerful accelerant for the work being carried out across Mila’s research community.” Hugo Larochelle, Mila Anthropic announced on Tuesday that it is committing $10 million CAD to fund…
Manzil has officially launched self-directed halal stock trading south of the border in what the Toronto-based Islamic FinTech startup claims marks a North American first. Now, instead of only allowing its American clients to invest through a managed portfolio—an option the company initially rolled out last year after purchasing United States (US) peer Aghaz Investments—Manzil…
A lot of workplace software is complex, clunky, and not super intuitive. A Montréal startup is betting that most employees would rather ask an AI tool than their manager how to use it. The news: Montréal-based Solving.AI has raised a $1.1-million CAD pre-seed round from AQC Capital and Québec angel investors for its AI training…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Conventional satellites can’t detect a wildfire until it’s roughly the size of a cruise ship. Greece just launched four that catch them when they’re four meters (about 13 feet) across. The four OroraTech nanosatellites, each smaller than a carry-on bag, went into low Earth orbit in May. Greece is…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM The story of women in art history is mostly a story of not getting seen. Not because women weren’t making art —they were—but because the structures that decided which art got shown, bought, and remembered were built by and for men. MAG The Women Gallery, launched in 2024, is…
TouchBistro, which sells point-of-sale (POS) technology to restaurants, has been acquired by fellow Canadian firm Harris Computer, a subsidiary of Constellation Software. The news: TouchBistro had raised hundreds of millions worth of venture capital (VC) funding and debt from big-name investors to bring its POS and restaurant management software and hardware to market. Ottawa’s Harris…
One of Canada’s quantum frontrunners announced another breakthrough in error correction on quantum computers, in an effort to make them useful in the real world. The news: Sherbrooke, Que.-based Nord Quantique, last valued at $1.4 billion USD ($1.9 billion CAD), published a research paper demonstrating that it achieved errors below 0.1 percent on a single-mode,…
Alberta has opened up its online gambling and sports betting market to allow in private sites and apps. The news: Private gambling sites and apps can now operate in Alberta after changes to the Province’s regulations around iGaming came into effect today. The Alberta iGaming Corporation, which manages Alberta’s iGaming market, as well as several…
General Fusion has become the first company solely focused on fusion power to go public. The Richmond, BC-based company made its Nasdaq debut on Monday morning, days after shareholders voted to merge the private company with the publicly traded special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III (Spring Valley). At closing, Spring Valley…
This week, we are speaking to another company profiled in our 2026 BetaKit Most Ambitious issue, which tells stories of Canadian innovators strengthening our security, autonomy, and prosperity. The autonomy and prosperity components are obvious to any Canadian paying close attention to the state of our sovereignty in the last year. But defence and defence…
