Ottawa Business Journal

Calian Group CEO Kevin Ford has set a bold goal. Through organic growth and acquisitions, the company wants to achieve $1 billion in annual revenues. Achieving that goal will depend on a series of successful acquisitions. Remarkably, Calian acquired 11 companies during the pandemic. In this episode of Techopia Live, OBJ's Michael Curran and EY's Warren Tomlin co-host to ask Calian's CEO about his...

The deck is stacked against technology startups. Success is an unsure bet. To boost their odds of success, some startups join incubators and accelerators, programs that can speed the pace of growth and overcome common hurdles. In this episode of Techopia Live, OBJ publisher Michael Curran talks with Leo Lax and Stef Reid of L-SPARK, the SaaS accelerator based in Kanata. Lax talks about how corpora...

When bootstrapped tech entrepreneurs need to take the next step in their development, who do they turn to? In Ottawa, there is a group of early-stage investors who are willing to test assumptions, provide capital and offer guidance. That group is the Capital Angel Network. OBJ publisher Michael Curran talks with its executive director, Suzanne Grant in this episode of Techopia Live.

Ottawa has a multicultural technology sector workforce, including immigrants from around the world. When Russian tanks started to roll into the Ukraine weeks ago, a number of tech sector leaders, especially those with Ukrainian roots, jumped into action. Watching a mass exodus of Ukrainian refugees, these volunteers wondered if Ottawa could provide a safe haven for people fleeing the war-torn coun...

It is the perennial question for emerging technology firms. What is the right path to grow revenues and scale? For Trellis the right path was a $1.5-million seed funding round to accelerate growth. For Lightship Security there was a different path. Lightship recently agreed to be acquired by a Spanish cybersecurity firm that does business in 70 countries. Two Ottawa-based companies. Two very diffe...

It’s a trap that many founders fall into. They’re so focused on research and development or building out a product that they fail to properly organize their new business venture. Important documents like shareholder agreements get misplaced. They also fail to track and protect valuable intellectual property. Two female founders from Ottawa have a possible solution. It’s called Fortress. Legal. In...

In this episode of Talking Tourism, Mark Sutcliffe chats with Mark Goudie about the importance of Lansdowne to Ottawa's tourism sector and how the community space has become Ottawa premiere meeting place for sports, festivals and business events. Talking Tourism is sponsored by Ottawa Tourism: https://ottawatourism.ca/en

Ottawa-based BluMetric is riding high these days on a green wave. That's true from an environmental engineering perspective and when it comes to the company's financial results. The cleantech firm ended its fiscal 2021 with sales growth of 24 per cent, leading to record revenue and a record EBITDA of $5.3 million. The strong financials allowed BluMetric to post a top-50 performance on the TSX Vent...

What changing COVID rules mean for employment policies? How must employers react? And if COVID-19 policies need updating, what key changes must be made? Finding the right answers doesn’t have to be complicated. Emond Harnden LLP, one of Ottawa’s leading labour and employment law firms, is here to guide employers through these critical updates.

During the pandemic, many businesses and consumers have experienced problems related to an ongoing shortage of semiconductor chips. That “chipset famine” is manifesting itself in a shortage of automobiles, computers, smartphones and other devices. In this episode of Techopia Live, OBJ publisher Michael Curran speaks with a technology sector veteran with more than 30 years of experience in semicond...

Experts say that quantaum computing could arrive as soon as 2025. This evolution in computing will bring many benefits and some significant threats. Among those threats is the likelihood that quantum computing will break today's digital encryption. Quantropi, founded in Ottawa in 2018, is working to counteract the quantum threat. In this episode of Techopia Live, OBJ publisher Michael Curran speak...

Techopia is making its own news. In this episode, OBJ publisher Michael Curran speaks with EY Ottawa managing partner Warren Tomlin. Having cut his teeth at Corel in the 1990s, Tomlin shares his observations on the local tech sector and how Techopia and EY will support its growth.

When the Ottawa-based CEO of IMI wanted a better understanding of how his employees were doing, he set out to build Rhonda, an AI-powered digital persona that could check in with employees and monitor their satisfaction. Now Rudi Asseer is taking Rhonda to market as a SaaS solution that other companies can use to connect with employees and strengthen company culture.

It started as an informal group for rookie CEOs, including Tobias Lutke of Shopify, who would meet for coffee or drinks. Years later, the group known as Fresh Founders is gaining momentum in terms of members and financial resources. In 2022, Fresh Founders is considering focusing on more cities and creating a more formal structure. In this episode of Techopia Live, OBJ publisher Michael Curran spe...

In part two of an interview with Knak, OBJ publisher Michael Curran talks with Knak CEO Pierce Ujjainwalla about the Ottawa-based software company’s US$25-million venture capital raise from Insight Partners. Ujjainwalla talks about how the venture capital was secured and how it will be used to accelerate the company’s growth.

If you’re someone who thinks email marketing is a thing of the past, think again. Knak is an Ottawa-based software company that specializes in codeless email marketing and landing pages. Knak has 25 million reasons why email marketing is a technology product that is ripe for innovation. In this episode of Techopia Live, OBJ publisher Michael Curran talks with Knak CEO Pierce Ujjainwalla.

In this episode of Techopia Live, Alvaro Pombo reviews the financial fundamentals for Ottawa-based ProntoForms and shares pearls of wisdom on how to lead a growth-oriented micro-cap in the Canadian market. The 20-year CEO also explores the challenge of enterprise sales growing at scale and the values that ProntoForms holds at its core.

Alvaro Pombo has very deep roots in Ottawa’s technology sector. He was CIO of Newbridge Networks way back in 1999, when it was sold to Alcatel. Instead of staying with the buyer, Pombo reflected on his earlier career, when he helped ExxonMobil with IT automation for field workers. It was this experience that led to the founding of ProntoForms, where Pombo recently celebrated 20 years as its founde...

In May 2019, Paul Vallee made a bold move. He decided to sell a majority stake in Pythian to instead focus his considerable expertise and talents on a spinoff called Tehama. That startup specializes in something called “desktop as a service” and says it wants to be the technology platform for any work that happens with a keyboard and mouse. With a pandemic disrupting work and instantly creating mi...

Artificial intelligence is one of the most powerful technology trends in the world. When it comes to AI, Ottawa has a notable enterprise leading the way. Almost seven years ago, Solon Angel and a small team founded MindBridge AI. Think of it like anti-virus for financial statements. It’s product uses AI and machine learning to find errors in financials and sometimes fraud. In this episode of Techo...

Having held off raising capital for years, Ottawa-based startup Rewind landed a bonanza of cash in 2021, a total of US$80-million in venture capital. In this bonus episode of Techopia Live, OBJ publisher Michael Curran speaks with Rewind CEO Mike Potter and the money raised, the expectations set and what comes next in 2022.

In this bonus episode of Techopia Live podcast, OBJ publisher Michael Curran dives into the backstory of one of Ottawa's hottest technology firms, Rewind. Co-founders Mike Potter and James Ciesielski share their beginnings in the technology sector and the origin story of Rewind.

When you think about high potential technology companies based in Ottawa, Assent Compliance is near the top of that list. In this episode of Techopia Live, Assent Compliance CEO Andrew Waitman gives an update the company that many say will become the city's next unicorn.

One of Ottawa's veteran technology sector CEOs reflects on the technology sector almost two years into a pandemic and gazes into the crystal ball to prognosticate about 2022. Ottawa Business Journal publisher Michael Curran speaks with Assent Compliance CEO Andrew Waitman in this episode of Techopia Live podcast.

More companies are incorporating artificial intelligence into their business operations. Yet few executives consider how they will monitor or mitigate the potential biases and risks of AI. In this episode of Techopia Live host Sherry Aske speaks with Niraj Bhargava, CEO of NuEnergy.ai, an Ottawa-based company that helps its clients measure and manage trust in AI technology.