Author: Editor-in-Chief

Toronto-based legaltech startup Bench IQhas raised $5.3 million USD ($7.3 million CAD) in seed financing to help expand its artificial intelligence (AI) platform that says it can analyze judicial rulings for lawyers. Bench IQ said it plans to expand its coverage to US state judges and Canadian judges. The round closed earlier this year, led by Inovia Capital and Battery Ventures, and included $1 million USD of debt. Other backers included CIBC Innovation Banking, MVP Ventures, Maple VC, and Haystack VC. The startup said this brings its total funding to $7.4 million USD. Bench IQ’s platform claims to help lawyers…

Over the last several years, fusion power has gone from the butt of jokes — always a decade away! — to an increasingly tangible and tantalizing technology that has drawn investors off the sidelines. The technology may be challenging to master and expensive to build today, but fusion promises to harness the nuclear reaction that powers the sun to generate nearly limitless energy here on Earth. If startups are able to complete commercially viable fusion power plants, then they have the potential to upend trillion-dollar markets. The bullish wave buoying the fusion industry has been driven by three advances: more…

Every founder says they want visibility, traction, and growth. But with just 10 tables left and 5 days to grab one, the window to make that happen at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 is closing fast. If you’ve been thinking about joining 10,000+ startup and VC leaders in San Francisco on October 27–29, this is your moment. Lock in your place on the Expo floor where ideas, capital, and connections collide. Here’s what’s waiting for you at your table Real investor exposure: We’re talking foot traffic from the likes of Sequoia, a16z, General Catalyst, Y Combinator, and more. They walk the floor.…

Lovable co-founder Anton Osika recently posted that his Swedish vibe coding startup had grown from $1 million to $100 million ARR in just eight months. It is the latest claim of rapid AI revenue growth pointing to a reset in the foundational assumptions of how companies scale. Lovable and its ilk aren’t outliers: new data from mega VC a16z shows the median enterprise company now reaches $2 million ARR in its first year. Best-in-class performance from the pre-AI era would now put a startup on the low end of the benchmark. “ That’s also quite daunting as an investor to be…

Mary Richardson was elated when her 2SLGBTQIA+-focused dating app, Bindr, won a prize at Montréal’s Startupfest in 2024. The connections she made were a bonus: she met Vancouver-based Bradley Breton, who became an investor in Bindr. She returned to Pennsylvania with cash winnings and a new Canadian network.  Richardson has had a busy year since. Alongside Breton and her Bindr co-founder, she spun out a marketing software tool to found ColdStart, another United States (US) company, which she says has generated over $1 million in revenue so far. But under the current US administration, Richardson says growing anti-2SLGBTQIA+ sentiment and…

Martin Kon, president of Toronto-based Cohere, is stepping down to assume a new advisory role, the company said. Kon, who was also Cohere’s chief operating officer, will retain his spot on the enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) company’s board of directors. “Martin continues to be a key member of the Cohere team,” the company said in a statement to BetaKit. Cohere did not say whether a replacement had been appointed for Kon. In a LinkedIn post , Kon said he was making the move to spend more time with his family, noting that “working almost non-stop” throughout his career had affected personal…

In 2023, the team at CoLab wrapped up “one of the most painful processes” they had ever endured. The St. John’s, Newfoundland-based company had spent days preparing a single Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax credit claim with a traditional accounting firm.They were then audited, adding another 15 hours of preparation and requiring a dozen developers to join audit calls with the Canada Revenue Agency. “We actually understand the technology side of it right from the first call.” Kyla Mireault, Boast “When we met CoLab, they were just completing the last round of their last audit with their previous…

Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.-based artificial intelligence (AI) software startup Astrus says it has closed $8 million USD ($11 million CAD) in seed funding to help semiconductor companies automate the design of analog circuits for advanced microchips. “Every breakthrough in human progress, from curing diseases to exploring space, depends on faster, more efficient computation.” Brad Moon, Astrus Astrus co-founder and CEO Brad Moon claimed to BetaKit in an email that physical layout is “the hardest, most time-consuming, and most costly part of chip design, especially for custom analog and mixed-signal circuits.” With its AI-powered software, Astrus hopes to automate this process.…

Frontier, a major buyer of carbon removal services patronized by tech giants including Shopify, Google, and Meta, has signed a $31.3-million USD ($43.3 million CAD) deal with Dartmouth, N.S.-based Planetary Technologies to help remove atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions through the ocean. The deal sees Frontier buying carbon removal credits that it claims will eliminate 115,211 metric tonnes of atmospheric CO2 between 2026 and 2030. Planetary’s approach helps the ocean absorb CO2 by adding alkaline minerals like calcium oxide and magnesium oxide to coastal water, breaking down dissolved CO2 and storing it for an estimated 10,000-plus years. “This…

Montréal-based online fashion retailer Ssense said it would file for protection from creditors to “safeguard” the company from a potential sale by its lenders. “We are deeply disappointed in this decision, which we believe does not serve the long-term interests of our 1,000+ employees, vendors, and partners.” This comes after the e-retailer’s primary lender filed to place Ssense under protection of the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) without its consent, the company said in a statement to BetaKit. The CCAA Act allows large companies owing more than $5 million to restructure under court supervision. Ssense spokesperson Olive Leatherwood said the…