Latest news with #Communitech
Hamilton Spectator
26-05-2025
- Business
- Hamilton Spectator
Pensions ‘investing almost nothing' in Canadian tech
The big Canadian pension plans have not bought into 'Elbows Up' and 'Buy Canadian' sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs, says a veteran tech investor. 'It is more important than ever that Canada own its innovation, I think it is a relatively simple change, the Minister of Finance could do it tomorrow,' said Chris Albinson, a venture capitalist and former CEO at Communitech. Known collectively as The Maple 8, the big Canadian pension plans are a huge source of investment funds for American and Asian companies, said Albinson. 'The $2.7 trillion in pension assets collectively in the large Maple 8 pensions, 45 per cent of those dollars are invested in the U.S.,' he said in a recent interview. The pensions in the U.S. invest about five per cent of their assets in American innovation, and two years ago the British government said the pension plans there need to invest five per cent in British innovation. The Maple 8's investments in Canadian technology amount to about 0.5 per cent of their total investments, said Albinson. 'They are investing almost nothing in domestic innovation,' he said. The Maple 8 group of pension plans includes the Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo), the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI), la Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), the Canadian Public Pension Investment Board (CPPIB), the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP), Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (OTPP) and Public Sector Pension Investment (PSP). One of these funds, the CPP investment board, did not respond to a request for an interview. During his long career in venture capital, Albinson raised billions for startups and scaleups. For 20 years he was based in Silicon Valley, and returned to Canada in 2021 when he became the CEO of Communitech. Shortly after arriving at Communitech, he launched the True North Fund that raised $2.8 billion in its first year — more venture capital than the previous 10 years combined for Communitech. President Trump's threats against Canada's economy and territory need to be taken seriously, and the big pension funds should be part of Canada's push back, he said. During 2024, the biggest venture capital deal was the $1.24 billion raised by B.C.-based Clio, a software maker for the legal sector. It was one of the biggest software fundraising rounds in Canadian history. 'There wasn't a single Canadian investor,' said Albinson. Last year was a continuation of a decade-long trend. 'Over the last 10 years, 66 per cent of $40 billion that has been invested in our best companies has been U.S. investors,' said Albinson, citing numbers collected by the Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association. 'Said differently, over the last decade we have sold 66 per cent of the ownership of our best companies to the U.S.' Canada's tech sector has 86 companies generating at least $100 million annually. It has four, private, venture-backed companies generating $1 billion annually, and two of those are in Waterloo Region. 'It's awesome that we have all these high performing companies, and they are at scale, they are on the cusp of being these global champions to really drive the flywheel over, we just sold off control of those companies to the U.S. in the last decade,' said Albinson. The one exception among the Maple 8 is la Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, which has a policy of investing in Quebec and Canadian tech. In 2022, the Caisse led one of the biggest funding rounds in the history of Waterloo Region tech, a $250 million investment in the cybersecurity Unicorn eSentire. The Caisse investment was the biggest part of a $325-million raise. The U.S., U.K., Scandinavian countries and others require their pension plans to invest in their innovation economies. Canada has no such requirement. 'Every other G7 country invests five to six per cent of their pension assets in their future, in their innovation engines, to keep them rooted in the country,' said Albinson. 'We are the only one that doesn't, and it drives me mad.' Canada Pension Plan Investment Board posted online its annual report for the last fiscal year that ended March 3. Investments generated a return of 9.3 per cent for fiscal year 2025. That $59.8-billion return is from investments in the U.S. (47 per cent), Europe (19 per cent), China and Asia (17 per cent), and Canada (12 per cent). It paid out more than $4 billion in fees and bonuses to external managers. In 2005, Ottawa removed any requirements on pension plans to invest in Canadian tech or any other sector of the economy, said Matt Roberts, a Toronto-based investor. At the time, the pension lobby implied that Canadian companies would get about 45 per cent of all the investments from Canadian pension funds, but that did not happen, he said. 'I would like them to put more money into Canada and figure it out,' said Roberts, co-founder and general partner at CMD Capital. 'Find the best investments in Canada, and if it's venture capital, wonderful, if it's not, fine.' The lack of investment in Canada by Canadian pension funds is hurting all sectors of the economy, he said, not just tech. 'When you send a dollar outside Canada you are losing the multiplier effect of that economic activity,' said Roberts. Prime Minister Mark Carney's government should require minimum levels of investment in Canada by the Maple 8, he added. A preliminary report on the subject went to the federal cabinet last fall, but was never made public. 'We have more money in China through CPP than we have in Canada,' said Roberts. 'Most Canadians I don't think would be happy with that. I think Canadians now want to invest in Canada, the problem we have now is it requires significant change.'
CTV News
02-05-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Kitchener startup using AI to better inspect infrastructure
A Kitchener based startup is trying to find a better solution for inspecting major infrastructure like bridges, roadways and buildings. ConeLabs created an engineering-grade platform that uses Artificial Intelligence and 3D modelling to catch things the naked eye might miss. 'Because we can't keep up. If you simply Google search 'structural failure'. Unfortunately, it happens way too often. It's not a function of lack of inspection, it's actually a function of lack of available inspectors,' Albert Mansour, CEO and co-founder of ConeLabs, said. Mansour and a team of engineers spent a couple years inputting data to teach the AI what to look for. 'It allows us to just keep up. So today, if you look up bridge inspection, we're shutting down lanes of highways. We have folks rope accessing, we put people underneath bridges from a bucket truck. So all of that is a very resource intensive, time-consuming task,' Mansour said. Images are taken using a phone or a drone. The images are turned into a 3D model, and AI analyses for any signs of damage. The drone can follow a flight path around a bridge, so it never has to fly directly over the bridge. 'What we are building couldn't be imagined more than two years ago. to process imagery, make a 3D model, find defects in three dimensions, The level of compute required frankly didn't exist before. And that's why, in 2023, is when we all heard about AI and ChatGPT, that applied to us too. That maturity, and compute gave us the ability to build out this technology,' Mansour said. ConeLabs rendering ConeLabs inspects a bridge in this rendering. (Submitted/ConeLabs) Since it's inception, Communitech has helped connect ConeLabs with the City of Kitchener. The city is using it as part of a pilot project to inspect two bridges and one road. 'You're always skeptical about new technologies and how you can use it, but what we've seen so far is it's built our vision of what we can do and how we can analyze these structures,' Chris Spere, director of engineering services for the City of Kitchener, said. While the pilot project has only used the technology for the two bridges, and at Erinbrook Dr., the city said it sees the potential for it and how it could be used more in the future. 'It could save us time and money as we get further into a process. So it's the quality of the data and the quantities that we can extract from that software that is really going to prove to be beneficial to us,' Spere said. While the city is using it just as a pilot now, Mantour said ConeLabs is targeting other municipalities and engineering firms as they continue to grow, to try and find simpler, safer and faster solutions to inspecting. 'A few companies have declared they're building something similar. So it's kind of a race to see who comes out with the solution first,' Mantour said.
CBC
03-03-2025
- Business
- CBC
Waterloo region tech companies 'holding their breath' as proposed U.S. tariffs loom
Social Sharing Waterloo region tech companies say the tension over whether U.S. tariffs will actually happen is creating a lot of economic uncertainty within the companies themselves and with investors. Joel Semeniuk, the chief strategy officer at Communitech, says it's causing local tech companies to rethink how they do business between both countries. "Tech companies that are doing things in robotics and hardware and producing physical things are realizing and seeing that there's an integrated supply chain," Semeniuk told CBC News. "Some of these products cross the border a few times before they become finished products… So these companies are thinking about where they're sourcing the materials from and rethinking their supply chain," said Semeniuk. "But then there's the software side of things where, right now there's no immediate risk of tariffs on software. However, it has been mentioned. But these organizations sell to companies who could be impacted by tariffs as well." U.S. President Donald Trump says he will slap a 25 per cent tariff on most Canadian goods as of March 4. Trump also says his threatened reciprocal tariffs on specific goods set to come into effect in April "will remain in full force and effect." Flipping tech companies Guru Singh, the founder and CEO of Scispot, says the tariffs are creating uncertainty with investors. Scispot provides a data platform to biotech and diagnostic labs that helps bring their scientific breakthroughs to market faster. Singh says they're figuring out what the tax implications will be or whether they'll work through an American subsidiary or "flip" the company — that means leaving the country. "That will not be our choice because most of our talent comes from Waterloo, Kitchener and the GTA. So it will be very challenging to move the company completely," said Singh. "It doesn't take much time to move the company, but you cannot move your team overnight. So it will cause some disruption, but that's like a worst case scenario for a company if they have to move to a different jurisdiction, it will disrupt the process for sure." Singh notes Scispot is not a location-dependent company and they're trying to create a global company headquartered in Canada. Unnecessary tariffs The Technology Councils of North America (TECNA), which represents 22,000 tech companies in the U.S. and Canada, including Waterloo region, has sent a letter to the Trump administration saying it opposes the tariffs and warns it will "harm businesses, disrupt supply chains and threaten jobs on both sides of the border." "History teaches us that tariff wars are costly, unnecessary, and difficult to unwind once enacted. Once in place, they create ripple effects that harm industries, raise costs for consumers, and stifle innovation," said the letter. "Instead of crippling U.S. companies with massive new taxes, we urge the Administration to prioritize policies that strengthen American businesses by supporting efficient trade, reducing costs, and maintaining our competitive edge in the global economy." TECNA argues these tariffs will drive up costs for manufacturers, tech firms, and even digital services, making North America less competitive globally. Shining the spotlight locally At Communitech, Semeniuk says while "everybody's holding their breath" to see what comes next they continue to shine the spotlight on local companies and the Canadian market. "Making sure that Canada also knows that we know that we have amazing startups that we can buy from at home," said Semeniuk.
