WTN turns 1 🎉 October Events Lineup is Here
Plus... Taiv sees double digits growth, Winnipeg startups break into top 15, and Skip & Laivly enter the autonomous vehicle space.
October Tech Thursday Line-Up
The October line-up of Tech Thursdays is out and should be great! We want to thank our incredible sponsors for making these events possible: SkipTheDishes, Neo Financial, Manitoba Tech Accelerator, Norima Consulting, Go Oil, Snowflake, Amiron Ventures, and AWS. Here is the October lineup:
October 5th - ‘Sales in Startups’
Featuring Mike Hart, Director of Partnerships at Taiv, Kelly McBroom, Director of Sales at Neo Financial, Monica Morosan, Digital Marketing Manager at Illumia labs, Kristin Sheffield, Head of Corporate Operations at Little Brown Jug, and Clint Unrau, CEO at Sandler.
October 12th - ‘On-Call and Incident Management / Post-Mortems’
Featuring: Daylan Law, Director of Software Engineering at Neo Financial, Craig Kinloch-Melia, Senior Director of Technical Operations at Bold, and Derek Boutang, Head of Engineering at SkipTheDishes.
October 19th - ‘Fighting Financial Crimes’
Featuring Kassandra Swan, Product Manager - Payments & Fraud at SkipTheDishes, and Stephen Oyewole, Director of Financial Crimes at Neo Financial.
October 16th - ‘Raising Capital in the Prairies’
Featuring Myles Sheddon, VP of Private Equity at Longbow Capital.
All Tech Thursdays start at 4:30pm, and take place at the King’s Head Pub. Stick around for StartUp TNT’s happy hour after each event.
→ To RSVP and to get more information, visit the Tech Thursday Eventbrite here.
Spotlight: Taiv
Taiv had an incredible month; they saw 14% Month over Month growth, surpassed 500 locations, and launched 2 new cities. This kind of growth deserves its own spotlight.
Taiv was founded in 2018 by Noah Palansky (CEO), Jordan Davis (CTO), and Avi Stoller (CRO). The story goes that Noah was in a sports bar and noticed ads for a competing sports bar on television. Surely, he thought, there’s a way to only show ads that makes sense for the bars audience. That day, Taiv was born.
Since then, the company has built proprietary hardware that sits between the cable box and the TV in sports bars and restaurants. Taiv’s hardware uses real-time AI to detect ads played during programming, the ads are then switched to content provided by the restaurants or content from advertisers on the Taiv network.
Taiv is free to venues. They make money by selling ads, the revenue from the ads is then rev-shared back to the restaurants and bars.
In Winter of 2020, Taiv went through the esteemed Silicon Valley startup accelerator, Y Combinator. To date, the team has raised $500,000 in Seed funding.
This month, Taiv had several notable moments:
Launched two new markets: Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston
Hit 500 venue partners across 4,000 screens
14% MoM growth
Announced a partnership with Place Exchange, a standout player in the Out of Home programmatic network arena
Became officially verified by Vistar Media's 'Vistar Verify', a gold standard in digital out-of-home inventory
Product Launches & Partnerships
3Common, a platform for ticketing and bookings for experiences, has recently added new customers across the US, BC, and Ontario. These include Fuil Wines Winery in Los Angeles, California; Featherstone Estate Winery in Niagara Falls, Ontario; The Llama Sanctuary in Tappen, BC, and more.
SkipTheDishes has launched a sustainable packaging pilot in Calgary with Earthware. Skip is supporting its network of restaurant partners across Canada to provide a more sustainable takeout experience.
Awards & Funding
Neo Financial and Conquest Planning were both named to LinkedIn’s top 15 Startups in Canada. Neo Financial topped the list for the second year in a row.
Winnipegger’s Vanesa Cotlar and Margaux Miller were both named to the list of Strong Woman in IT in the 2023 global report.
Renterii is the winners of this year's Technology Category in the Pow Wow Pitch competition and is heading to the Finals.
Illumia Labs, formerly Delphi Technologies Corp., has been chosen by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) through Innovation Solutions Canada. Illumia made a shortlist of 26 solutions, out of hundreds of applicants, to validate their tech for future contracts. More than 5+ government agencies are interested in their product.
Carly Shuler and Maya Kotecha, co-founders of HootReading were names as finalists in Telus’ #StandWithOwners! The award recognizes Canadian businesses that captured a groundbreaking, game-changing, and growth-minded spirit. The grand prize winners will be revealed on October 5.
In the News
StudioLab xR has been recognized as an Unreal Authorized Training Center. This accreditation will amplify StudoLab xR’s offering by providing comprehensive courses, hands-on learning, expert instructors, and networking opportunities.
Laivly, SkipTheDishes, and the two Red River College student teams won Winnipeg's AWS DeepRacer Competition, a race where teams use machine learning to compete to have the fastest autonomous 1/18th scale race car.
Other Events
October 26th - EMILI is hosting their annual conference called ‘Agriculture Enlightened 2023.’ The event takes place at the Fairmont Hotel in Winnipeg. The conference brings together agri-food and technology experts, industry leaders, decision-makers, researchers and students from across the prairies. To register and to view the event schedule, visit this link.
November 18th - a interactive arts and tech conference ‘HyperFestival’ is taking place at Red River College. The conference brings together tech enthusiasts, digital creators, and visionaries to explore the creative, commercial and technical possibilities of new emerging immersive digital worlds.
Who’s Hiring
Neo Financial, French Bilingual Team Lead & Lead Product Manager
Amiron Ventures, Venture Analyst & Senior Venture Analyst
LotLynx, Senior Programmer, Product Designer, Int/Sr Data SQL Analyst, & Sr Analytics Engineer
SkipTheDishes, Data Scientist , Global Courier Onboarding Manager, & Privacy Officer
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