What Happened this Month in Winnipeg Tech 📈🚀
Tall Grass closes tall fund, Taiv launches 3 markets, and slow fundraising numbers
🚀 Product Launches & Fundraising
Tall Grass Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on AgTech, has announced that it has closed its inaugural fund with a total fund size of $32 million.
EMILI has received investment from the governments of Canada and Manitoba for their Innovation Farms Centre. The centre will receive $2,025,000 over fives years to support increasing productivity, sustainability, and profitability across the agriculture and agri-food sector. EMILI also announced the renewal and enhancement of its partnership with Farm Credit Canada (FCC) at Innovation Farms powered by FCC AgExpert.
Launch Coworking Space is nearing the grand opening for their third location in True North Square (200-185 Carlton St).
Taiv, a ad detection and replacement device, is launching 3 new markets: Atlanta, San Francisco, and San Diego.
QDoc, a virtual healthcare platform, has launched their iPhone App and secured a contract with the Manitoba Government to provide 25,000 visits with Nurse Practitioners. They also collected several accolades:
Won the Spirit of Winnipeg Award – Technology Section
Won a National CIO Award for their medical billing platform
Finalist in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Prairies
Hit 1800 Google Reviews with a 4.9/5.0 rating
📰 In the News
Andrew Loewen and Randy Schartner, former Priceline executives, announced their latest project Plannin, a global travel booking platform that empowers creators to monetize their hotel recommendations.
Gryd, has brought on Tim Wootton, founder of Rover Parking (acquired by US-based parking tech giant SpotHero) joined our team last week as an exclusive Advisor for GrydPark.
North Forge has hired Dana Driedger as the Director of Strategic Initiatives.
Grant McDonald, Co-Founder and CEO at Bobo, has been accepted into Alberta's Machine Intelligence Institute's (Amii) CTO Level Up Program.
👀 Eye-Opening Fundraising Numbers
In some eye-opening news, Manitoba raised the least of any Province in Canada in the first half of the year. With only one venture deal reported to the CVCA, Manitoba’s collective tech companies raised less than $1M.
Venture deals and capital raised are not the only metrics that an ecosystem should be measuring their success by, though they are valuable indicators. These numbers highlight how much work there is still to do to make Manitoba a world-class ecosystem.
Ultimately, we should be optimistic, there’s a lot of exciting tech companies in Manitoba like FasTab, Gryd, 3Common, Bobo, Taiv, QDoc, Plannin, ContructionClock, Vexxit, OutreachGenius to name a few. We have the foundations of a great ecosystem. There’s talent, resources, and an incredible community. We need to continue to build great companies and products, and the world will notice. It’s only up from here 📈.
👯 Other Events
November 7, 2024: Agriculture Enlightened 2024, hosted by EMILI
👩🏫 Who’s Hiring
Neo Financial, Senior Fullstack Developer & Lead Product Manager
Gryd, Senior Software Engineer
Taiv, Jr. Full Stack Developer