Calgary's tech and innovation industry gets $22.3 million federal funding boost

Calgary's Platform Innovation Centre and parkade on Ninth Avenue S.E.

The federal government made another funding announcement in Calgary on Thursday, this time benefiting the city's tech and innovation sector.

The feds are providing more than $22.3 million in interest-free, repayable funding to some of Calgary's fastest growing tech firms through Prairies Economic Development Canada (PrairiesCan), saying the money will help the companies scale up and enter new markets.

Daniel Vandal, the federal minister in charge of PrairiesCan, made the announcement at Platform Calgary.

The funding provided will go to 13 Calgary businesses that Vandal said are "leading the way in innovation."

The Calgary companies receiving funding are:

• BlackSquare Inc. - receiving $500,000 to scale-up and expand the global market for its digital e-commerce platform;
• Canadian UAVs Inc. - receiving $415,000 to expand its market by introducing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology and related services to Canada’s energy sector;
• Exergy Solutions Inc. - receiving $879,063 to expand its industrial scale additive manufacturing / 3D printing capacity to support energy and decarbonization technology development and deployment;
• Genoptic LED Inc. - receiving $5,000,000 to establish a manufacturing operation to mass-produce its advanced hybrid solar panel and battery storage technology;
• IWR Technologies Ltd. - receiving $1,125,000 to scale-up its Livestock Water Recycling division by expanding its technology into global markets to reduce agriculture’s carbon footprint;
• MRF Geosystems Corporation - receiving $997,500 to expand markets for geospatial products and launch a new LiDAR-based gravel road condition assessment solution;
• MyHEAT Inc. - receiving $1,650,000 to accelerate the growth of its energy efficiency platform, and deliver on its vision of using remote sensing and artificial intelligence to reveal the invisible wasted energy from every building across the globe;
• Nanalysis Corp. - receiving $4,985,000 to expand manufacturing operations and global markets for nuclear magnetic resonance products;
• Natural Distributions Ltd. (operating as Purple Frog Products) - receiving $461,000 to expand markets for plant-based natural products and build in-house manufacturing capacity;
• Organics Express - (operating as SPUD.ca) is receiving $4,368,888 to expand its Alberta distribution centre and implement its FoodX technology platform for e-grocery and supply chain management with a goal of using technology to reduce food waste;
• SumoQuote - is receiving $483,500 to expand to international markets and scale-up its software-as-a-service web application that helps businesses quickly generate visually stunning quotes that set them apart from the competition;
• Tangent Design Engineering Ltd, Connect For Inc. - receiving $525,000 to expand its product line to include ConnectFor, an industrial Internet of Things sensor platform that enables seamless and secure data transfer; and
• Westgen Technologies - receiving $1,000,000 to increase manufacturing capacity for its proprietary methane emissions reduction technologies and to expand to new markets.

The government says funding for the companies is expected to help create a total of 1,000 jobs while also helping Canada meet its commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

On Thursday, the government also pledged $2 million to help complete Calgary's Platform Innovation Centre.

"The Platform Innovation Centre is the front door to this community — a single point of access for startup founders as they navigate Calgary’s innovation ecosystem," said Platform Calgary CEO Terry Rock.

"The Innovation Centre will support a collective effort to triple the economic impact of tech in Calgary and make this city a global hub for startups and innovation by 2031.”

Brady Parry, president and CEO of Calgary Economic Development, says the city is full of innovators.

"This investment is an example of why Calgary is a top tech city to launch and expand transformative technology," Parry said.