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Special report: A secret hero’s cybersecurity legacy
With its top mathematics university, pioneering smartphone history and do-the-right thing ethos, Waterloo Region is home to a cybersecurity industry of increasing global importance. Less familiar is the story of how it all began – with a Second World War codebreaker whose heroism remained a closely guarded secret for 50 years. To cap off Cybersecurity Awareness Month in October, Communitech News published this special, in-depth story of how the foundational work of Bill Tutte, the codebreaker-turned-University of Waterloo professor, gave rise to the thriving security cluster we see today.
Rare species
As if to underscore the region’s cybersecurity significance, Arctic Wolf Networks, one of the region’s biggest security companies, vaulted to unicorn status in October, reaching a US$1.3-billion valuation upon raising a US$200-million Series E investment round. The company was co-founded in 2012 by Kim Tremblay, a University of Waterloo math and computer science graduate.
Rare as Arctic wolves and unicorns might be, that news was soon followed by word that Faire – a wholesale platform for small retailers founded in Waterloo Region and San Francisco just over three years ago – is now worth US$2.5 billion, after its own Series E raise of US$170 million. That’s double its valuation of a year ago, when Faire surpassed $1 billion in value. Rounding out the local unicorn list is ApplyBoard, the placement platform for international students, which hit a valuation of CDN$2 billion in May.
To wrap up October funding news, edtech startup Knowledgehook, an early alumnus of Communitech’s former Rev accelerator program, announced it had raised a CDN$20-million Series A round to help grow its online math instruction platform. Demand for remote learning solutions has surged due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Coping with COVID
Now heading into its ninth month, the pandemic continues to influence virtually every aspect of life, and the tech community continues to rise to its challenges and demands. Vic Fedeli, Ontario’s Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation, and Trade, acknowledged as much after taking part in a Communitech-hosted roundtable with area medtech entrepreneurs and others. With more than 130 health-based tech companies, Waterloo Region is well positioned to help strengthen Ontario’s medtech and personal protective equipment (PPE) industries.
Taking to the skies to test drone delivery of medications to homes and long-term care facilities in October was AirMatrix – a Communitech Fierce Founders Pitch Competition winner and current participant in the AVIN Waterloo Ventures at Communitech program – which is building “skyways” for safe drone operations. The tests were conducted in collaboration with various local agencies including the University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy, where an associate professor is reportedly working on a COVID-19 vaccine that would be administered as a nasal spray.
Mental health has also emerged as a key challenge as the pandemic wears on. To that end, a University of Waterloo engineering alumnus, now a professor at Harvard Medical School, is working with Canadian organizations on an app to help youths cope with pandemic-related anxiety.
Still with mental health, Kevin Crowley, the newest member of the Communitech News team, spoke with Amandah Wood, a Waterloo Region wellness advocate and Shopify employee, about the particular challenges faced by tech workers.
Job loss is no doubt one of the more stressful impacts of COVID-19. Communitech, in partnership with HR tech firm Plum, the City of Kitchener and the Region of Waterloo, hosted a virtual event to help displaced workers prepare for new opportunities. Speaking of Plum, the company’s CEO, Caitlin MacGregor, spoke to the Financial Post for a piece focusing on the unique pressures faced by women entrepreneurs due to the pandemic.
Workers in retail, service and other frontline sectors have also faced challenges related to COVID-19. Waterloo-based employee learning platform Axonify, many of whose clients work in those sectors, surveyed workers and found many who felt unprepared for the pandemic.
At the other end of the spectrum are companies with employees working from home, which has led to shifts in everything from commercial real estate to where workers decide to live. In Waterloo Region last month, software firm Boxbrite Technologies announced a permanent move to virtual work, while the Waterloo Region Record reported that Shopify is subleasing more than 60,000 square feet, or nearly two-thirds, of its Waterloo office space. Communitech CEO Iain Klugman spoke to Kitchener Today about the talent-acquisition opportunities for local tech companies that have resulted from the move to proximity-optional workplaces.
Of course, remote work brings its own challenges when it comes to company culture and keeping colleagues connected. Communitech News Tech About Town columnist Alex Kinsella wrote about three Waterloo Region businesses that offer unique team-building solutions for companies with remote workers.
The pandemic has also prompted an innovative approach to music therapy at the region’s Grand River Hospital. In a first for Canadian hospitals, Grand River will offer virtual music therapy to patients, thanks to the not-for-profit Awesome Music Project. Video marketing tech company Vidyard will build a repository for the recorded sessions.
Meanwhile, members of a student-run club at the University of Waterloo continue to help residents of long-term care homes with tech challenges during the pandemic.
Boosting capacity
Looking past the pandemic, the City of Kitchener announced a new, $110-million investment fund to help the local economy recover from COVID-19. A similar city fund established more than a decade ago helped catalyze an innovation-focused renaissance in Kitchener’s core, including establishment of the Communitech Hub in the former Lang Tannery.
The city is also in line to partner with the University of Waterloo on a new, 90,000-square-foot, $35-million health innovation facility at its downtown Kitchener health sciences campus.
On the topic of health, St. Jacobs-based Huron Digital Pathology announced that its technology would be adopted by the Joint Pathology Center in Silver Spring, Md., the premier pathology reference lab in the United States. Huron has built an AI-powered search engine for digital images of pathology specimens.
Down on the farm
For the second straight month, BinSentry – whose sensors detect feed levels in farm feed bins – made news. After announcing a US$7.7-million Series A investment round in September, the startup followed up in October with a distribution deal with global agriculture giant Cargill.
And SomaDetect, an agtech startup that won a 2017 Communitech Fierce Founders pitch competition for women-led companies, was featured by farm news site Farmtario for its work in helping dairy producers glean data about milk quality and cattle reproduction.
In other news
- Toronto-based Varicent acquired Communitech Rev alumni startup FunnelCake.
- Waterloo-based software giant OpenText moved its annual conference to a virtual format this year. Communitech News featured a talk by neuroscientist Dr. Poppy Crum.
- Wilfrid Laurier University’s Lazaridis School chose 13 companies for the sixth cohort of its ScaleUp Program.
- Communitech’s True North TV series continued with MappedIn CEO Hongwei Liu; innovator and recent immigrant to Canada Ketaki Desai; Creative Destruction Lab founder Ajay Agrawal; and a panel of entrepreneurs who discussed the Digital Main Street program.
- A Waterloo Region-based YouTube star created a functioning, Star Wars-style lightsaber.
- Canada’s quantum computing companies partnered to form a new organization, co-chaired by Michele Mosca of the University of Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing.
- The Waterloo Region office of cinema tech company Christie took part in developing a UV-light device that can safely kill pathogens in spaces with people present.
This edition of the Roundup compiled by Anthony Reinhart.
