Over the last couple of years, the pace of change has increased, especially for consumer shopping, selling and payment habits. Businesses are in the midst of a shift in overall methods of commerce. If the steps taken are done right, it bodes well for businesses in the future.

Despite recent challenges, some businesses hit the ground running at the onset of the pandemic and thrived. What’s the secret to their success? Square, a global technology leader providing tools and financial services for businesses, collaborated with Wakefield Research to find the answers. They conducted a survey of 1,000 customers and 500 retail businesses in Canada to gather their insights for the Future of Retail 2022. From this report, businesses can learn what it takes to evolve successfully in a changing world.

Keeping pace in a changing retail world

Automation is one area that is receiving plenty of attention. While companies are seeing it as a possible solution to ongoing labour shortages, it doesn’t mean replacing employees with robots. Automation allows staff to focus on more meaningful work. It’s a big trend with an estimated 93 percent of Canadian companies saying they use, or plan to use, automation technology to decrease the hands-on time of staff.

Consumers are turning to alternative ways of shopping beyond just online, including buying through live streaming and social media. During the pandemic, they’ve been accustomed to alternate channels and want options available to them. These seamless and easy-to-use omnichannel buying experiences are expected to grow in scale in the upcoming years.

It’s a win for businesses, too. Omnichannel commerce builds customer loyalty and provides multiple touchpoints for maintaining contact with consumers. The barrier for some retailers is a lack of knowledge about technology that prevents them from selling goods via newer online or social channels.

As Darryl Julott, Managing Lead at Digital Main Street, explains: “If you’re a smaller business, you need to look holistically at your business, your customers and your current omnichannel marketing strategy to see where you have gaps and where you can actually begin implementing a full-fledged strategy. You don’t want to get so far down the road and into the weeds with no direction. Pull back before you jump in — figure out how you’d be able to correct things and make adjustments on the fly.”

Consumers seek alternative shopping channels

Even as in-person shopping rebounds, the demand for e-commerce isn’t going anywhere. Retailers will have to adapt as consumers change how they want to buy and pay. The report findings show 61 percent of consumers prefer contactless payment, while 36 percent of retailers say they no longer accept cash. That makes adopting other payment solutions like mobile wallet apps, touchless card payments and QR payments a smart move.

Though consumers say they want contactless shopping, they still want connection, which is why conversational commerce is emerging as a leading trend for retailers. It allows businesses to meet their customers where they are. The data shows 47 percent of retailers reported they currently sell or plan to implement selling via text or chat. Customers are already embracing alternate channels with 23 percent buying retail items from salons and spas through social media channels.

Social media isn’t just about connecting, the report states. It’s about customer demand and translating it into sales. “By fine-tuning their message on all social channels available, retailers have a unique opportunity to meet millions of potential new customers and reach existing ones to help drive additional sales,” explains Brandon Levy, Square’s general manager, inventory, fulfillment and merchandising.

With change comes opportunity. Businesses can stand out by offering interactive, memorable retail experiences. Stores can break out of the box and experiment with inventive ways to keep customers engaged and spending more time with their favourite brands.

The post Top Trends Impacting Retail in 2022 appeared first on HiveInnovates.

The pace that commerce has accelerated during the pandemic has changed the way businesses and consumers transact. With no sign of slowing, the continued reliance on digital payment technologies has been a keyfocus among businesses. Consumers have embraced new shopping and payment behaviours in a significant way and have come to depend on them.

Adopting digital payments has played a vital role for businesses of all sizes and in all industries. According to leading payments technology company, Global Payments, key trends have emerged and are explored in detail in their 2022 Commerce and Payment Trends Report. Payment experts, global businesses and issuers weighed in to provide their insights about which trends businesses should pay attention to this year.

Digital technology gains momentum in a post-pandemic world 

The results, presented as five key trends, are shaking up commerce in a positive way. For businesses, these insights are invaluable for evaluating current strategies and ensuring they are prepared to meet the needs of customers and partners.

1. Buy now, pay later means higher conversions

Businesses selling big-ticket items are accustomed to offering customers installment plans. This year, offering tailored and flexible buy now, pay later (BNPL) plans on smaller purchases is on track to be a top payment trend. Though primarily limited to in-store transactions in the past, the availability of BNPL has now expanded to online purchases.

An estimated 65% of merchants plan to adopt this payment option, according to Global Payments. Consumers have shown they are comfortable making larger purchases when they have the option of BNPL. Features like opt-in payment plans and BNPL plans can be offered at check-out to split their payments and set-up installment plans.

2. Adapting to changing customer expectations is key

Meeting a customer’s expectations these days should include the ways they prefer to pay at checkout. The pandemic amplified the need for businesses to allow customers to pay digitally, both online and in-person. As such, the acceptance of digital wallets, QR-code payments, payment links, and online invoicing have proven to meet the needs of digital-savvy consumers and businesses alike—addressing concerns for safety and expectations of convenience.

As online shopping habits continue to form, businesses should also review their ecommerce platforms, ensuring their product pages are optimized and the checkout process is frictionless.

3. Customers expect a connected buying experience

When mapping a customer’s buying journey, businesses should aim to look at the bigger picture–from beginning to end. Connecting every point of the buying process to support a strategic commerce ecosystem has been shown to deliver better outcomes. Integrating gift and loyalty programs, for example, help attract new customers, retain existing customers and drive revenue.

Brand affinity and familiarity are driving factors for many purchase decisions. That’s why digital commerce strategy should focus on adopting ways to create a superior experience for customers while also providing key metrics and analytics to help run and grow business. Often, businesses rely on many different providers to deliver what they need which can be inefficient–a better option is to choose a single-source provider that can provide a robust suite of options at the start.

4. Data security remains a priority

Handling customer data means businesses should adhere to the latest guidance and follow proper protocols for data security. It’s a topic that will drive some of the greatest challenges for businesses this year.

Cybersecurity Involves ensuring data privacy policies, procedures, and protections are met. Technology Can help protect data. For example, tokenization—where sensitive data is modified and stored with “tokens” which have no real relationship between the token and the original card number–provides an added layer of security to protect data.

It’s recommended that businesses re-evaluate their policies and procedures at least once per year and consult with a payments partner for recommendations and solutions.

5. B2B payments get digitized

Businesses transacting with other businesses are continuing to see the reciprocal role that digital commerce plays. With more of the workforce remote, businesses need to ensure payment obligations are being met with suppliers, driving the need to digitize B2B payments. It’s estimated that digital B2B payments are expected to increase from 121.5 billion in 2020 to 200 billion transactions by 2025, according to Capgemini.

The benefits of a streamlined digital B2B payments approach includes better cash flow management, greater efficiency and less money spent on paper supplies and postage to name a few.

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Getting cleantech innovations to market can be challenging. KPM Power’s Battery Management Systems are helping to remove major barriers to electrification.

When Karen Lai established KPM Power in 2017, getting lithium batteries to market was a huge challenge. “Dealing with lithium is a very expensive process and a lot of the government funding was being cut at the time,” says the President & Founder of KPM Power, a Canadian company specializing in customized lithium-ion battery solutions. Wanting to help get cleantech companies and alternative energy products to market, she eventually settled on battery management systems (BMS) as the quickest and most affordable way. BMS is an electronic system of hardware and software that monitors and controls the state and performance of the battery.

Only Canadian company with a UL1973 and UL2580 certified BMS

KPM Power’s Anzen line of BMS has a key feature for allowing customization for various applications and battery types and is approved for chemistries ranging from lithium to nickel zinc. This year it received UL1973 and UL2580 certifications for safety for stationary applications (back-up power, off-grid power, vehicle auxiliary power and light electric rail applications) and moving electric vehicles, respectively. Being the only Canadian company to have both certifications not only eases KPM Power’s own entry to the North American market, but also that of its original equipment manufacturer (OEM) customers. “It will also open the door to a lot of OEMs out there because it simplifies the certification process and makes it easier for them to get their cleantech to market,” says Lai.

Being a female founded and run company, KPM is eager to support young women and girls in pursuing the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields through hackathons and bursaries. “Right now, girls make up only about 20% of enrolment in STEM programs, so we’re working to help more girls join STEM fields,” says Lai.

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Unlike learning a new skill or hobby, there is no “how-to” handbook for entrepreneurship – that’s where non-partisan, well-connected support organizations come in. In an ecosystem filled with hyper-specialized, regionally diverse entities, there is a benefit in having access to a “30,000 foot overview” of the resources and opportunities within the startup landscape. Support organizations and their teams can point new and existing founders in the right direction, help them make informed decisions, and empower their success through connections and collaboration. Ecosystem connectors are also uniquely poised to identify the support gaps that really exist in the space.

There is much to consider when launching a new business – everything from financing and HR to marketing and legal. According to Startup Canada’s 2020 census, founders in the space are looking for more streamlined, centralized overviews of support available across the ecosystem. Startup Canada is committed to creating and fostering an entrepreneurial environment in Canada that is as supportive to new projects as it is to those that are established. Knowing that no two journeys are the same, we have created a list of resources for all aspiring and existing founders.

Here’s a good place to start:

Financing

• Hockeystick connects startups to funding using AI and data to drive connections.
• Clearco is a lending firm specializing in non-dilutive revenue-share agreements with startups.
• Backstage Capital is a venture capital firm specializing in funding women, People of Colour, and LGBT+ led startups.
• The 51 is a Financial Feminist platform where investors and founders come together for democratized access to women-led capital for women-led businesses.
• The National Angel Capital Organization is a steward of the angel capital asset class and informs evidence-based policy in partnership with the government.
• The Government of Canada has many loan and grant programs meant to empower Canada’s founders.
• Bank loans for SMEs: BDC, Scotiabank, etc.

Pitching

Volition brings a community-building approach to advising and events for entrepreneurs.

Human Resources & Hiring

Essential HR provides streamlined HR relief to small businesses through hands-on support.

Marketing & PR

• THINK DIFFERENT[LY] is a PR company helping organizations build, test, and measure effective growth strategies.
• Comms Bar works like an Apple Genius Bar, helping founders to use PR, marketing, and publicity to grow their business.

Global Growth

Startup Global connects a pan-Canadian cohort of entrepreneurs wanting to build global businesses through workshops, bootcamps, pitch building, advisory support, digital resources, and more.

Mentorship & Community

• Mentorly is a leading online mentorship platform connecting emerging and seasoned entrepreneurs for meaningful, one-on-one mentorship.
• Startup Communities are local, grassroots networks on a mission to fuel a culture and environment of entrepreneurship at the local and industry level.

Demographic-specific Support

Women-identifying Support

• FLIK is a curated portal allowing ambitious women to take on a mentorship-based apprenticeship under a woman leader.
• Startup Women helps women founders through mentorship, events, and resources.

Rural Support

• Rural on Purpose is a social purpose business with a global mission to introduce a new era of rural entrepreneurship.
• Clearing a New Path Podcast amplifies the underrepresented voices of rural women founders across the country.
• Community Futures operates 267 non-profit offices across Canada providing small business services to those in rural communities.

Indigenous Founder Support

• Okwaho Equal Source is a social purpose enterprise on a mission to fuel social impact through human-centred design, innovation, and Indigenous-led research.
• NACCA is a network of over 50 Aboriginal Financial Institutions dedicated to stimulating economic growth for Indigenous people in Canada.
• Pow Wow Pitch is a grassroots community of Indigenous entrepreneurs purpose-built to provide a platform for education, celebration, mentorship, and reconciliation.

Black Founder Support

• The Black Entrepreneurship Program is a partnership between the Government of Canada, Black-led business owners, and financial institutions which includes an investment of up to $350.8 million over four years.
• Black Entrepreneurs BC provides advocacy, access to funding facilitation, advisory and mentorship services to help Black businesses grow, scale, and become sustainable.

LGBT+ Support

• The CGLCC is the only chamber of commerce uniting and advocating for Canada’s 28,000+ LGBT+ owned and operated businesses.
• Pride at Work uses dialogue, education, and thought leadership to empower Canadian employers to build workplaces that celebrate LGBT+ employees.
• TransFocus Consulting brings systems-thinking to gender inclusion, helping organizations transform from the inside out.

Disability Support

Liberty Co is a consultancy focused on increasing the participation of Neurodiverse individuals in the workforce.

Youth Support

Futurpreneur provides financing, mentorship, and support tools to aspiring founders aged 18-39.

Specialized tools and resources have their benefits, but to truly empower Canadian entrepreneurs we need centralized, reliable, dedicated support spaces where founder success is central to mission and mandate.

Kayla Isabelle is the Chief Executive Officer at Startup Canada, the gateway to Canada’s entrepreneurial ecosystem that points you in the right direction, eliminates barriers, and champions your needs to private and public sector partners. Startup Canada’s mission is to connect Canada’s entrepreneurs with the tools, community, and support they need to start and build their businesses. Kayla has dedicated her career to supporting entrepreneurs, both in Canada and internationally. As an award-winning strategic communications consultant and change management facilitator, Kayla is passionate about leveraging the power of storytelling in the entrepreneurial community.

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Since the very first modern computer appeared in office, we’ve all been asking, “Do we still need all this paper?” It’s a harder question than it seems. If we want to limit the waste, the ecological impact, and the productivity drain of paper, we need to step back and ask ourselves what it is that keeps drawing people to the printout. We need solutions that ease the transition to an enhanced digital workflow while understanding real-world business needs.

The reality of paper

The invention of paper ushered in a never-before-seen age of literacy and education. It’s a cheap, portable, accessible, and lasting vessel for information. Those qualities still drive its use today. But, in an era where workers are spread across the globe, handing a sheet of paper to a colleague is rarely convenient. This is a world where information may as well not exist if it can’t be accessed from your phone. This is a moment when costs are measured not only in dollars, but in time and tons of carbon.

The advantages of going paperless are clear. The Association for Intelligent Information Management has reported that 84 percent of organizations that undertook paper-free projects achieved payback in less than 18 months. But that value is only realized when the undeniable power of print is preserved through this transition.

Canon has spent decades perfecting the philosophy and the practical reality of how people and businesses create, preserve, use, and share information. They’ve leveraged this experience and insight into the creation of new suites of tools that aren’t just paper replacements, but reinventions of the business information ecosystem. And, critically, these systems are informed by a deep understanding of what businesses and employees want and need.

A complete digital transformation

According to Gartner, every time an employee touches a piece of paper, it costs the company $20. Gartner further estimates that the average employee loses almost four weeks of productivity every year searching for lost and misfiled documents. There’s real money and time to be saved here.

But, when the office is a maze of filing cabinets, and home work spaces are chaotic mountains of paperwork organized only by memory and hope, the gap to a structured digital solution may seem unbridgeable. Going paperless is a process, not an event.

Canon’s flagship information management solutions provide an answer to this problem. And cutting-edge OCR, intelligent document fingerprinting, and high-accuracy indexing provide a seamless on-ramp for any document into the digital workflow the moment it’s needed.

These solutions provide workers with the ability to capture, archive, retrieve, edit, and process data at any point in the workflow quickly and securely. They turn every document into a transactable work space with a memory of its own, providing every bit of the power and flexibility of a paper and a pen while maintaining the accessibility and security of cloud-based collaboration.

And, just as importantly, the new digital paradigm to which these documents are transitioned, to has been crafted from the ground up for efficiency. After all, little is gained by replacing a stack of marked-up paper with a tangled email inbox housing dozens of threads with hundreds of versioned documents. A comprehensive solution gently and seamlessly tames this mess into a cohesively streamlined whole.

So, do we still need all this paper? Not necessarily, but we do need a knowledgeable and thoughtful guide to lead us away from it. We need a voice that is intimately familiar with the way businesses work and is unafraid to imagine ways they could work better. Reaping the benefits of the paperless transition requires not a leap, but a series of well-informed steps along a carefully crafted path, a path paved by companies like Canon.

The post Helping Companies Upscale As They Outgrow their Paper Workflow appeared first on HiveInnovates.

Oftentimes, entrepreneurs and business owners find themselves hampered by a lack of robust market intelligence. With that in mind, the City of Abbotsford, BC, has set out to provide tools that business owners need — online, interactive, mobile-friendly data to guide their decision-making, especially when crisis hits, such as a pandemic or natural disaster.

Nicknamed “the Sitefinder,” the first tool that Abbotsford introduced for local and new businesses was the Geographic Information System (GIS) ZoomProspector tool back in 2016 — making it the very first community in British Columbia to put tens of thousands of data variables alongside available commercial properties for analysis.

Powered by technology from GIS Planning Canada, and augmented by five additional interactive tools the following year, investors and businesses could use the tool to research, analyze, export, and share demographic, wage, consumer spending, business, and industry data. The information comes from a variety of regularly updated sources, including Environics Analytics (based on Statistics Canada data), Emsi and Data-Axle. But the Sitefinder makes these sources of data interactive and highly visual – and available to any business looking online for solutions.

“Abbotsford’s location is right next to the border as well as the port, which helps us to get our product anywhere in the world. Also, we have a lot of industries here to support our manufacturing. If a saw breaks down at the mill, we’re not going two hours out of the bush to get it sharpened, we’ve got a guy right next door that can do that for us,” says Nav Sangha of North American Forest Products.

This ability to “shop local” took on a new urgency for businesses when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. With lockdowns, enforced closures and supply chain disruptions, everything became that much harder for businesses. Abbotsford responded by launching Open for Business (ZoomBusiness), which allowed area residents to quickly map and find local businesses that were open; to learn about modified hours, contactless delivery, gift card programs and more. The tool was one of the first to launch in Canada and remains a great way for businesses to list themselves and to see others around them. Moreover, with the help of this tool, people could spend their dollars at home instead of online.

As the pandemic dragged on, it became clear that important, long-lasting shifts in how business was being done were underway. Businesses were pivoting. And Abbotsford followed, leveraging a third, highly customizable GIS tool to its data toolkit. The virtual ZoomTour uses Google Maps technology, supports images, video, sound and can link to business websites or the City’s other GIS Planning data software.

Abbotsford’s “Passport to Patios” tour showcases restaurants offering extended outdoor patio service to customers wanting a safe eating experience at their favourite locales. The “Abbywood Walk of Fame” tour leads visitors down the main street and through town to discover locations and businesses popular with film and video producers. And the newest “Agriculture Resource Map” offers help, funding and support for farmers and other agri-business affected by the 2021 flooding disaster.

“Although we have hundreds of clients across North America, the City of Abbotsford is one of the first places we contact with any new data tools. We know they intuitively understand the importance of supporting businesses and investors with critical information,” explains GIS Planning Canada’s VP Marketing, Alissa Sklar, PhD.

The City of Abbotsford remains a model for how communities can actively support their local businesses in the ways that count, by giving them easy access to the information they need when they need it.

The post How Abbotsford Is Supporting Businesses with Critical Market Intelligence Data appeared first on HiveInnovates.

Canadian startups need to think internationally in order to succeed. Learn how the DMZ can help mitigate the risk involved in expanding to new global markets.

Despite Canada’s small market, many Canadian startups are not exploring the potential that global expansion may bring to their company.

While every founder wants their company to access new customer bases and capital, only about 12 percent of small businesses in Canada currently export their goods and services. However, for companies who want to look into expanding, it might be time to start looking global from the get-go.

“The majority of tech startups don’t realize it, but they are in a business that can be global from day one,” says Abdullah Snobar, the Executive Director of the DMZ. “We need to help tech startups and early entrepreneurs see themselves as exporters, even if they don’t have a physical product.”

The DMZ has helped to raise over $1.5 billion in seed funding for startups and has provided mentorship and support, utilizing its worldwide network, to turn Canadian startups into world-class, global tech businesses.

Looking beyond Canadian borders

According to Snobar, for Canadian startups in a small domestic market, considering global expansion is a necessity, not a nice to have. This was the case for Softdrive, a DMZ incubator company, where only 3 percent of their total addressable market was in Canada.

“The US has about 24x the amount of organizations than Canada, making it critical for Softdrive to expand internationally,” says Leonard Ivey, Founder of Softdrive. “If we don’t, we’d be stunting our growth significantly and mitigating our chances of success.”

However, there are a few barriers that make global expansion difficult for Canadian startups. For pet-tech company Charmy Pet, navigating the regulations to comply with federal agencies like the CFIA and U.S. FDA was one of them—but the support of the DMZ and their connections made the process much easier.

“We were fortunate to have the support of the DMZ and their in-house supply chain experts to help us expand,” says Zach Sheng, Co-Founder and CEO of Charmy Pet.

Building a reputation in a new market, while trying to find support, trustworthy global partners, and dealing with cultural differences, can be difficult. “It can take a few years for a startup to build a solid reputation in their local market and transferring that trust to a global market is challenging,” says Mohsen Omrani, Co-Founder and CEO of OPTT. “A good way to bridge local trust to a new market is being associated with reputable organizations, like incubators and VCs, with proven track records.” It helps to have a team like DMZ in your corner where these past experiences can be used as leverage.

How the DMZ’s network can help

But Snobar says one of the biggest barriers to expansion is the founder’s own mindset. “If they don’t want to go global, then they’ll find every excuse not to go. But there’s always risk anywhere you operate,” says Snobar. “If you don’t look to expand into a new market, someone else will.”

For those who do want to expand globally, the DMZ offers founders a deep understanding of different local ecosystems, countries, and economies through their network of global offices and incubators in over 10 countries. For example, if a Canadian startup wanted to expand into India, the DMZ could connect them to other founders and partners in their field who are already involved in the Indian market. This is due to the DMZ being an enabler to global expansion—they can help founders access peers who’ll understand their journey and their struggles.

“There’s never been a more important time than today to think about how to take your business and expand to your full potential,” says Snobar. “The whole team is glad we’re helping in that journey with creating opportunities for founders entering these new markets.”

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Community boosters are worth a lot. Schools, arenas, parks, and libraries in Strathmore share stories of people pulling together to get the project finished. More businesses are discovering that the community is proud to help them grow, too.

Investments in agri-business, manufacturing, and renewable energy are setting records for the largest volume of capital investment in Strathmore’s history. It’s a town focused on the future and growth that welcomes a variety of startups but has retained its rural roots and a commitment to its community.

More businesses are discovering what Strathmore offers

That is just one reason why Borea Construction has been so pleased with its partnership with Strathmore. It is constructing two major solar projects in the area and has received an incredible level of support from the town. “Strathmore is really willing to go farther to help us succeed,” says Chelsea Million, the company’s talent advisor. When explaining what sets Strathmore apart from other places, she cites the successful job fair hosted locally, the quality of local candidates, and the town’s willingness to share resources in order to help meet the firm’s goals.

The town has a long tradition of being innovative and solution-focused. Its Marigold Library System, established in 1981, was a game-changer. The not-for-profit municipal collaboration provides state-of-the-art library services, now serving over 300,000 people across 44 municipalities. It joined forces with Western Irrigation District (WID), which supplies irrigation water to almost 100,000 acres of farmland, to build a new shared headquarters this year. It’s a prime example of Strathmore’s strong collaborative spirit.

Focus on success and innovation

Local businesses are expanding their reach. Origin Malting drew on five generations of farming expertise when they launched their malting plant in 2016. As pioneers of soil conservation and traceability, they brought a focus on sustainability to their operations. Producing the finest malt for craft brewers has brought customers from across North America.

We have great people that work hard here. Some of the finest people you’ll ever meet…they work right here. We’re much like a family I guess.

An unexpected start-up has its origins in a local farm as well. G&S Airport Conveyor, which builds and maintains baggage conveyor systems for airports around the world, started out of a garage on an area farm. Since moving into Strathmore, the company has grown and invested in newer, more advanced technology. Owner Jim Goertz appreciates how business-friendly Strathmore is. He also likes the inviting small-town feel, something that makes it easy to attract and retain employees. It’s a desirable place to work and to live in. “We have great people that work hard here. Some of the finest people you’ll ever meet … they work right here. We’re much like a family I guess.”

Strathmore is well-positioned to keep the momentum going. “Strathmore offers start-ups a great place to grow. Our team offers personalized support you can’t find in large centers” says Mayor Pat Fule. “We’re a friendly, welcoming community that helps each other to succeed.”

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Many working and operating outside of the entrepreneurship space have the common misconception that Canadian startups and scale-ups primarily serve local markets, and do not have global scaling potential. Based on what we have seen at Startup Canada, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Canadian founders and their teams continue to push the limits of innovation in their sectors, helping to forge Canada’s collective SME identity into one of leading edge innovation and international impact. Examples of those leading the charge include: 

Nyoka Design Labs 

Founded by Paige Whitehead and Yamila Franco out of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Nyoka Design Labs has created the world’s first earth-friendly glowstick. Powered by bioluminescence, their products are non-toxic and biodegradable. Perhaps the most innovative aspect of Nyoka is their commitment to the Earth as a key stakeholder. 

The Cultured Coconut

The Cultured Coconut is a Halifax-based company founded by sisters Linda Peers and Anne Hebb. Their non-dairy probiotic contains over 4 trillion Colony Forming Units and over 40 active strains, making it the most powerful probiotic on the market. 

Ecobee

Ecobee, a Toronto-based technology company, has created the first smart thermostat. Dreamt up by Stuart Lombard, the device learns from a user’s behaviour in order to conserve energy, while also saving money. Customers can rest easy knowing the company never monetizes personal data. However, user’s can donate their data to climate scientists if they wish. 

Current Ecobee customers have saved enough energy to take the city of Las Vegas completely off the grid.

Hopper

Founded by Frederic Lalonde, Hopper is an airline and accommodation booking app that accurately predicts personalized travel recommendations for each user. Utilizing complex algorithms that process trillions of data points, the company has saved users over $3.8 billion to date on travel expenses. 

Profound Medical Inc.

Profound Medical is a leading edge medical corporation revolutionizing prostate cancer treatments worldwide. The Toronto-based company has created non-invasive, customizable therapies – removing prostate cancer without the use of radiation while also fully preserving the user’s urethra and rectum.

CarbonCure

CarbonCure, founded by Rob Niven, is reimagining global carbon reduction efforts. Through their innovative technologies, the company is able to add recycledCO₂ to fresh concrete – helping to improve operations and drastically reduce the carbon footprint of the concrete industry. CarbonCure is on a mission to reduce 500 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually by 2030 – the same as taking one million cars off the road. 

Despite the estimated $135 billion in debt small businesses in Canada have jointly taken on since the beginning of the pandemic, entrepreneurs across the country continue to display resilience, flexibility, and world-class innovative solutions. As we work to rebuild our national economy, Canada’s startups will make it stronger than ever.  

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