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Canadian Tech in 100 Words

Neo Narrows Its Focus

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Calgary-based Neo Financial has cut staff as the fintech sharpens its focus after years of rapid expansion. In a LinkedIn post, CEO and co-founder Andrew Chau said the company made difficult changes to simplify the business, increase accountability, and concentrate on the opportunities where Neo can have the greatest impact.

The move follows a busy year that included a $68.5 million raise, a $150 million credit-card securitization with BMO, and direct participation in Interac e-Transfer. Founded in 2019, Neo has raised more than $650 million while building products across credit, savings, mortgages, payments, and embedded finance nationally at scale today.

Want to know more? Check out the source code on Calgary.tech.

Elevate Returns With Sovereign Focus

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Elevate Festival returns to Toronto September 22 to 24 for its ninth year, marking the growth of Canada’s homegrown tech and innovation gathering into a national platform.

This year’s lineup includes Kyle Lowry, Cohere Canada’s Michael Pelosi, Xanadu founder Christian Weedbrook, Clio founder Jack Newton, Borrowell co-founder Eva Wong, Dominion Dynamics CEO Eliot Pence, Reddit communications chief Adam Collins, DuckDuckGo product chief Beah Burger-Lenehan, and ElevenLabs CEO Mati Staniszewski.

Programming will focus on AI, fintech, autonomous vehicles, stablecoins, cybersecurity, and Canada’s sovereign technology future, including a new Sovereign Growth track developed with DMZ and BDC for founders, investors, and operators.

Want to know more? Check out the source code here.

Nextdoor Bets on Local Trust

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Nextdoor is rolling out product improvements in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. to make local business discovery more trusted and useful. The neighbourhood network says business recommendations already represent nearly 30 percent of platform content, reflecting demand for word-of-mouth referrals from verified neighbours

New features include Local Faves, a dedicated hub ranking nearby businesses by neighbour endorsements, easier-to-browse Business Pages, and annual Fave Award voting. Nextdoor is also redesigning free Business Pages with cover photos, neighbour comments, and simpler contact tools, positioning itself against anonymous reviews, paid rankings, and fake online credibility for small businesses.

Want to know more? Check out the source code here.

Wealthsimple Tallies Banking’s Hidden Costs

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Wealthsimple is using a national print campaign to make Canadian banking fees more visible, offering a line-by-line tally of monthly charges, transaction limits, foreign-exchange markups, ATM fees, overdraft costs, investment fees, and transfer penalties.

In a Fintech.ca interview, Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer Paul Teshima said the goal is to show how small, recurring costs can erode savings and pressure competitors toward clearer pricing. The campaign lands as Wealthsimple pushes deeper into everyday finance, with $17 billion in second-quarter net flows and chequing account openings surpassing investing accounts for the first time, reinforcing its challenge to large traditional Canadian banks.

Want to know more? Check out the source code on Fintech.ca.

Kardium Scales Heart-Tech Manufacturing

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Burnaby-based Kardium is investing $125 million to expand manufacturing of its Globe Pulsed Field System, a heart-treatment technology for atrial fibrillation. Ottawa will contribute up to $31.25 million through the Strategic Response Fund, supporting a major cleanroom expansion in British Columbia.

The project is expected to boost annual production capacity from 500 units to 30,000, while creating and maintaining 1,000 highly skilled jobs and keeping intellectual property in Canada. Kardium says the expansion will help bring its system to more physicians and patients worldwide after securing key regulatory approvals for the technology earlier this year in North American commercial markets.

Want to know more? Check out the source code on Techcouver.com.

Kepler Turns Space Into Infrastructure

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Toronto-based Kepler Communications has moved its optical data relay network into commercial service, positioning space itself as part of the data-centre stack. The first tranche, launched in January, includes 10 satellites with optical terminals, multi-GPU computing modules, and terabytes of storage.

Kepler says the network supports commercial and government customers globally with low-latency routing, edge processing, and faster delivery of data from Earth observation, defence, surveillance, and space-domain awareness missions. The company has demonstrated space-to-space links, connections to more than 10 optical ground stations, and an optical relay between low Earth orbit and an aircraft, with expansion planned for 2028.

Want to know more? Check out the source code on DataCentre.ca.

Helcim Charts Independent Payments Path

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Calgary-based Helcim has raised $53 million in Series C funding, led by BDC Capital’s Growth Venture Fund, as Canada’s payments sector shifts around it. The round included Curql Collective, Gold House Ventures, and returning backers including Headline, Aquiline, Information Venture Partners, Vesey Ventures, Clocktower Ventures, and Alberta Accelerate Fund.

Helcim has now raised about $100 million since 2022, with its valuation climbing to $250 million. The company says it has surpassed C$150 million in annual recurring revenue, serves more than 22,000 merchants, and is on pace to process nearly $10 billion in annual payments volume.

Want to know more? Check out the source code on Fintech.ca.

OTI Pushes Quantum Materials Forward

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Toronto-based OTI Lumionics and Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology say they have achieved 200-qubit quantum emulation on readily accessible hardware, demonstrating a practical path for materials discovery before fault-tolerant quantum computers arrive. The work used OTI’s iterative Qubit Coupled Cluster algorithm to model complex OLED materials with quantum-level accuracy on classical accelerated computing infrastructure.

OTI says the approach can outperform traditional chemistry methods while avoiding the cost and scarcity of large supercomputing clusters or quantum hardware. For display makers, the milestone could accelerate discovery of next-generation OLED materials used in phones, televisions, wearables, and other advanced electronics products at scale.

Want to know more? Check out the source code here.

Peripheral Raises for 3D Sports

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Toronto-based Peripheral has raised $8.7 million in seed funding to expand its spatial intelligence platform for live sports. The round was co-led by Inovia Capital and Deloitte Ventures, with follow-on backing from Khosla Ventures and Entrepreneurs First, bringing total funding to $12.5 million.

Founded in 2024 by Kelvin Cui and Mustafa Khan, Peripheral turns standard multi-camera sports feeds into navigable, game-like 3D environments for immersive replays, player tracking, and biomechanics. The company recently demoed with NBA and WNBA officials through NBA Launchpad and plans to expand engineering, accelerate stadium deployments, and launch a browser-based replay platform later this year.

Want to know more? Check out the source code here.

Moneris Moves to Francisco Partners

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RBC and BMO have agreed to sell Moneris to Francisco Partners in a deal valued at $2 billion, shifting one of Canada’s biggest payments companies from bank ownership to U.S. private equity. Moneris, founded in 2000 as a joint venture between the two banks, helps merchants accept and manage payments across roughly 325,000 points of commerce.

The deal includes long-term commercial agreements under which RBC and BMO will refer Canadian clients to Moneris. For Francisco Partners, which also owns Verifone and holds a stake in Paysafe, the acquisition adds scale in merchant payments and Canadian financial infrastructure.

Want to know more? Check out the source code here.