Will AI free up more time for creative pursuits, or introduce additional drudgery? betakit.com/could-ai-giv...

ATB Financial VP Brian Ford thinks stablecoins will “leapfrog” real-time rail payments. Ford discussed “the battle of the rails” in a panel conversation with Cybrid CEO Avinash Chidambaram and Paytrie chief strategy officer Jason Tong at the 2026 Canadian Finance Summit last Thursday.

Canada now has access to Anthropic's powerful Mythos AI model through Project Glasswing, AI minister Evan Solomon confirmed.

Toronto and NYC-based Mecka AI announces $60 million USD to power physical #AI. #CDNtech

A new #healthtech innovation hub has opened at Montréal's MUHC research institute to help startups get their medical tech into the clinic.

Trading platform Robinhood has closed its acquisition of WonderFi, marking its official entrance into the Canadian market. This also marks the exit of WonderFi leader Dean Skurka.

Version One has closed two new funds, but the Vancouver-based deep tech investor is increasingly looking outside of Canada.

According to the CBC, the draft strategy sets out to create up to 90,000 AI-related jobs and work opportunities for young Canadians. It would also support the creation of up to 250,000 new jobs through AI adoption by 2031. betakit.com/leaked-draft...

BDC credits Isabelle Hudon’s tenure with growing client count by nearly 50% and delivering $1.4B in dividends to the federal government Meanwhile, her leadership has also drawn criticism from parts of the private sector over BDC’s outsized role in direct investment and its impact on private capital

44% of execs at large Canadian B2B software companies said their firms had adopted agentic AI. In the US, UK, and Israel, that number is 67%. And that gap is accellerating. A year ago, Georgian says, the there was only a 13-percentage-point difference.

Although the government has said it will amend Bill C-22, it appears committed to forcing electronic service providers to collect and store user metadata. Sak says if that happens, @windscribevpn.bsky.social would still be forced to move its headquarters from Canada to maintain user privacy.

📰 In our latest BetaKit Newsletter, you’ll find not only the major national tech news from last week, but oodles of on-the-ground coverage from the BetaKit team of Canada’s largest grassroots tech event, #TorontoTechWeek.

[email protected] president Vivek Goel says the most important structural change universities must make is improving students' AI literacy. #TTW

Historically, Canada has been great at innovation, but much less great at commercialization. Erin O'Toole shares what he thinks the fix might be. Read more in #MostAmbitious:

As AI evolves, people are trusting it with important tasks. But at Toronto Tech Week, Questrade's Salim Naran said many are still hesitant to let the technology into their personal finances. #TTW

Aurmada has developed a line of “base layer” tops with kevlar material that serve as a lighter alternative to heavy-duty ballistic vests. But it plans to integrate far more capabilities into its wearables The idea, founder Zavosh Zaboliyan says, is to create "an infrastructure layer for clothing."

At Toronto Tech Week, Arteria AI's Shelby Austin took issue with the feds' philosophy of picking champions. "We need to widen our aperture and back anyone that’s showing promise here. Let’s let the market decide who’s going to be successful.”

Before it sold to Nvidia, Gennady Pekhimenko said his Toronto #AI startup CentML struggled to find domestic firms willing to adopt its tech. #TTW #CDNtech

Ottawa is signalling it may tweak Bill C-22. But will the changes be enough to calm the boisterous opposition if the government still won't budge on mandatory metadata retention?

When Canada’s long-delayed AI strategy is released next week, it will help the government make different choices around procurement, support, and providing capital to build up the industry. #TTW

Som Seif, who's in the middle of a fight with the Ontario Securities Commission, argued at Toronto Tech Week that the financial services industry is dominated by incumbents who don’t like change and use industry regulations against potential challengers. #TTW

Access is coming, but not everyone who wants shares will get them. With big IPOs like SpaceX and Anthropic looming, Wealthsimple is already trying to temper expectations around what could be very high demand.

At BetaKit's #MostAmbitious: Town Hall, Raquel Urtasun said she believes the time is now for Canada to go “all in” on physical AI, and that doing so could make us a global player in the coming decades. #TTW

The Canadians that founded YC-backed edtech startup Oohlala Mobile have a new venture they say will automate grunt work at banks and credit unions. Danial Jameel says his vision is "a future where humans and AI work side by side in financial services

From an “investor burn book” to an unexpected Serena Williams FaceTime, at Toronto Tech Week, Rebel CEO Emly Hosie, Float CEO Rob Khazzam, and Neo Financial CEO Andrew Chau shared what raising really looked like behind the pitch deck.

Feeling FOMO that you aren't in the Toronto Tech Week crowds? Catch up on all of BetaKit's coverage: betakit.com/tag/toronto-... #TTW

Jim Balsillie’s core argument is not that Canada lacks ambition. It's that Canada is still using an economic playbook built for another century.

While 'shovels in the ground' is an important metric to guage government effectivness, so is keeping cutting-edge Canadian companies/startups here in Canada. Some clear wins outlined at the @betakit.com town hall this week:

Canada cannot buy for modern warfare on peacetime bureaucratic timelines. At BetaKit’s #MostAmbitious: Town Hall, Dominion Dynamics founder Eliot Pence argued defence procurement now needs to move in weeks, days, and hours instead of over decades.

A growing number of Canadian defence founders are tired of hearing “dual-use.” At Arctic Edge, some argued the label has become so overused that it is now obscuring more than it explains. Others say it is still the only way many investors know how to get comfortable with the sector.

At toronto Tech Week's Homecoming, Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke said building a $1-billion company with one person is now possible, but that he has no idea why anyone would do it.

The gap between executive optimism on AI and Gen Z anxiety about AI may be getting harder to ignore. At U of T, leaders from Databricks and Ada tried to explain what is fuelling it, and what students might do with it

Canada's AI minister Evan Solomon says he's not worried that by choosing champions to fund, he risks creating monopolies or stifling competition.

The joint venture will see Sentinel working with Ukrainian aerospace and defence tech company Airlogix to manufacture drones in Canada and deploy them in the Russian-Ukrainian war.

In documents filed in the US District Court for the state of Delaware on, NPM accused Hiive of violating its patent for its secondary sale settlement and clearance program.

WonderFi announced in October that the deal’s closing was delayed until the first half of 2026. By closing on June 1, the company manages to just barely stay within that deadline.

When more than 80 percent of big late-stage financings come from foreign capital, the issue stops looking like a market quirk and starts looking like a national strategy problem. Read more from BDC's report on Canada's VC landscape:

[email protected]’s #TorontoTechWeek event is May 26! Headlining speaker Reynold Xin, Databricks co-founder, is joined by Ada CEO Mike Murchison in conversation with Amanda Lang. Don’t miss this conversation on data, AI, & what Canada needs to do to seize the moment: uoft.me/ttw-uoft-2026

For the second year in a row, Photonic has been recognized as one of BetaKit’s Most Ambitious. This year, we’re featured in the “Defend the Dominion” category, highlighting organizations driving dual-use Canadian innovation. Thank you to @betakit.com  for the recognition.

A connected lightbulb getting hacked is one thing. A connected prosthetic is another. That is the tension at the heart of this Upper Bound conversation on the security risks of the “Internet of Bodies.”

As open AI becomes increasingly concentrated in China and leading US labs keep their best models closed, @cohere.com seems to be trying to plant a flag around openness, security, and sovereignty.

Ottawa is putting more money into research chairs as competition for top AI talent gets more intense around the world. At Upper Bound, @evansolomon.bsky.social announced the $24 million for CIFAR's AI Chairs Program to support new appointments and renew prior positions.

At its third product showcase, @wealthsimple.bsky.social continued to show that it wants significantly broaden its scope. Its latest effort included a suite of new banking options for families and small businesses.

Intuit told employees in an internal memo earlier this week that it’s reducing investments in certain areas so it can pour resources into what it calls its “big bets.”

Capital is getting tighter at the earliest stages of Canada's angel market, but women now make up 40 percent of members in participating angel networks. That's the highest level NACO has ever recorded.

A month after going public, Xanadu is already adding another fundraising tool to the kit. The Toronto company says the new setup gives it the ability to keep topping up capital while it pushes toward more technical breakthroughs.

[email protected] spinout Quantum Bridge is going bigger on quantum-safe infrastructure, with new backing from investors across Italy, Spain, and the US. The company says the goal is to protect real networks now, not in some hypothetical future.

As its government funding dries up, Angel Investors Ontario has changed its mission and joined Jesse Wiebe's newly formed investor advocacy organization, the Canadian Startup Capital Association.

N49P’s pitch is not follow the hype. It is almost the opposite. The Toronto VC says it tries to avoid consensus deals, keep a wide aperture, and back founders who may look like “diamonds in the rough” early on.

Lightspeed has wrapped year one of its transformation plan with $1.23B in annual revenue and a net loss of $144.4M in fiscal 2026. More from its Q4 earnings: