Plus: Hugging Face’s Sasha Luccioni on tracking the ethical and environmental impacts of AI.
Welcome to BetaKit’s startup stories of the week! Here, you will find the week’s most important news, features, and editorials published on BetaKit.
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Top Stories of the Week
ECOSYSTEM FEARS CLEANTECH FUNDING GAP AS ISED PAUSES SDTC FUNDING AFTER MISMANAGEMENT INVESTIGATION
The Government of Canada has suspended Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) from funding new projects following the conclusion of a third-party investigation into allegations of mismanagement at the federal cleantech investment agency.
Canadian investors BetaKit spoke to said even a temporary pause on new SDTC funding could have a significant impact on Canada’s early-stage cleantech startups, at a time when venture and debt financing have become even harder to secure, and cleantech capital and companies are already fleeing south.
CANADIAN FINTECH COMPANIES LAUNCH OPEN BANKING PUBLIC ACTION CAMPAIGN AS DELAYS CONTINUE
The Choose More campaign — co-ordinated by Wealthsimple, EQ Bank, Wise, Flinks, Xero Canada, Borrowell, industry group Fintechs Canada and more—calls on Canadians to “demand more from your [Member of Parliament] and government” by telling their MPs they want a digital banking system and data portability rights.
The campaign launch comes days after the federally appointed leader of Canada’s open initiative, Abraham Tachjian, was intended to conclude his 18-month term. On Oct. 3, Tachjian announced on LinkedIn that his term had been extended to the end of the year, hours after BetaKit contacted the Department of Finance seeking to confirm whether his term had ended.
PINE ACQUIRES PROPERLY TO CAPTURE MORE OF THE CANADIAN HOME-BUYING PROCESS
Pine has acquired fellow Toronto-based tech startup Properly, including its brokerages and home search and discovery platform, as it looks to expand beyond just mortgages.
The all-cash deal closed in September and followed a separate transaction between Properly and United States (US)-based Compass.
CLEARCO SECURES NEW EQUITY FINANCING FROM EXISTING INVESTORS AND ASSET-BACKED FACILITY AS STRUGGLING FINANCIER RECAPITALIZES
Toronto-based FinTech startup Clearco has completed a series of significant financial transactions designed to strengthen the company’s balance sheet, enabling it to continue providing revenue-based financing to e-commerce businesses.
CARDATA RAISES $100 MILLION FOR PRODUCT ACCELERATION
Toronto-based software startup Cardata has raised $100 million to accelerate its new product innovation to support what it called its rapidly growing customer base.
YOUR FINANCE TEAM ISN’T IMMUNE TO DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
In a recent conversation with Zoho, a cloud software provider for businesses, Julian Weber, CEO of SELISE Digital Platforms, shared his journey and how he digitized his finance function in a way that helped grow the business.
Latest Funding, Acquisitions, and Layoffs
VAN – RetreatsAndVenues – $110,000 (read more)
VAN – Browse AI – $60,000 (read more)
VAN – Blanka – $35,000 (read more)
AB – Alberta Innovates opens $8M AI-healthcare program (read more)
CGY – Arolytics – $3.5M (read more)
KW – Rockwell Automation close acquisition of Clearpath Robotics (read more)
TOR – Pine acquires Properly (read more)
TOR – Cardata – $100M (read more)
TOR – Clearco secures $60M equity round, $100M financing facility (read more)
TOR – Lemurian Labs – $9M (read more)
MTL – Scale AI announces $21M for nine AI healthtech projects (read more)
MTL – Ocean Supercluster funds $20M for nine AI ocean projects (read more)
MTL – Relocalize – $4.78M (read more)
MTL – Green Graphite Technologies – $2M (read more)
QC – Gaiia – $13M (read more)
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The BetaKit Podcast
HUGGING FACE’S SASHA LUCCIONI ON TRACKING THE ETHICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF AI
“I profoundly believe that open source is the way forward for AI so that we avoid this monopoly of power.”
Hugging Face Climate Lead + AI Researcher Dr. Sasha Luccioni discusses the need to make AI “less bad for the planet,” how tracking carbon impacts and sharing data can help, and how the company she works for is trying to be GitHub for AI. Recorded live at ALL IN 2023 in Montréal.
AI REGULATION IS COMING BUT TOBI LÜTKE IS NOT “EFRAID”
“We don’t need more referees in Canada. We need more builders. Let other countries regulate while we take the more courageous path.”
A COVID isolation emergency podcast, Rob and Douglas catch up on the latest tech news, which—surprise!—is AI-focused. Featuring: hot takes on the latest AI lawsuits, new uses to help combat climate change and the just-announced Voluntary Code of Conduct for generative AI (the one that Shopify’s CEO said he would not support). We also gripe about the price of the new iPhones.
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