Canadian-founded, San Francisco-based AppDirect has acquired Toronto’s PartnerStack, which provides partner relationship management (PRM) software. The financial terms of the transaction, which the companies announced today, were not disclosed. AppDirect helps other firms buy, sell, and manage recurring tech services. It says the deal will help it create “the unified subscription commerce platform for partner-led…
A new event planning app is here, and it’s telling you to go outside. Founded by CEO Jocelyne Murphy and CTO Christopher Oka, Toronto-based Wygo has raised nearly $1.6 million in pre-seed funding to help people build communities outside. Similar to platforms like Luma or Eventbrite, but decorated with illustrations of partying stick figures, Wygo…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Only seven percent of Britain’s native woodlands are in good condition. Pests, pathogens, and invasive species have worked through the rest. And rising fertilizer costs, driven by ongoing conflict, have not helped. A Bristol-based startup thinks part of the answer has been sitting in festival portable toilets all along….
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM The moment you plant a seed, a race begins. Your vegetable seedlings need to establish themselves before weeds do, and the longer germination takes, the harder that race gets. Frost, temperature swings, animals, and flooding can all interfere during that window. Most gardeners tweak their watering schedule or soil…
Today, more businesses than ever before are relying on AI to get work done. The rise of vibe coding has meant that entire software products are now developed through natural language prompting. Finance teams are relying on AI models to reconcile transactions, while sales and marketing workflows are increasingly automated. “We’re doubling down on being…
Calgary startup Possibility Neurotechnologies today launched a first-of-its-kind app—one that allows users to control devices with their minds, Jedi-mind-tricks style. Think2Switch allows users to control and interface with devices using their thoughts, eliminating the need for physical or even voice-controlled input. Designed to be used in everyday settings for devices in the home, classroom, or…
Hootsuite founder Ryan Holmes is back in the CEO chair, replacing outgoing CEO Irina Novoselsky. Holmes and Novoselsky announced their respective appointment and departure in a pair of LinkedIn posts on Monday morning. BetaKit has reached out to Hootsuite for comment. Novoselsky wrote that both she and the company’s board “believe this is the right…
We are so back. After a short break to focus on a most ambitious endeavour, The BetaKit Podcast has returned with a banger, laser-targeted on one of the spiciest topics facing Canadian tech today. “We have a collective action problem. Somebody has to take the first step and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to deploy a…
Nicole Shokoples is toasting a new position—at Toast. The former Alberta Innovates executive announced today that she is taking on the role of COO at the Calgary-based recruitment platform. Founded in 2022, Toast is a woman-focused talent and recruitment platform aimed at helping women find roles in STEM fields, closing the gender pay gap, and…
Toronto-based Harmix Group got its start building an algorithmic search engine for the music industry. Along the way, the team was enamoured by another technical problem: fixing data fragmentation for small businesses using AI. Harmix was an early entrant to the field of multimodal AI, or applying machine learning principles to different media. Founded in…
