Volta, cofounded by GoInstant CEO Jevon MacDonald, emphasizes a founder-first, quality-over-quantity approach to building startups. “It’s all about the founders,'' says MacDonald. “We want to create world-class founders, who in turn will create world-class companies, right here in Halifax.''  Although it sounds like an accelerator, Volta insists otherwise: ''We are a place of mentorship and community and we are not an accelerator,'' the site reads. Their goal is to provide mentorship, encourage new startups, develop growth in existing startups, develop support frameworks, and create a brand seen as ''a beacon of the Atlantic startup community.''  Currently, Volta has 13 companies involved in its system, either as tenants or common space members. Those companies include TitanFile, FundMetric, and IntroHive. The non-accelerator is backed by big names including Omers and Deloitte.

Volta Labs

Innovacorp is an early-stage venture capital firm that helps knowledge-based startups commercialize their technologies in the global marketplace. It invests in early stage Nova Scotia entrepreneurs, combining venture capital with business mentoring and incubation facilities. Innovacorp was established in 1995 and based in Halifax, Canada.

Innovacorp

BDC offers financing, consulting services, subordinate financing and venture capital. They focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). BDC's services are available across Canada in both official languages through a network of more than 100 offices. Its head office is in Montreal.

Business Development Bank of Canada

The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency works to create opportunities for economic growth in Atlantic Canada by helping businesses become more competitive, innovative and productive, by working with diverse communities to develop and diversify local economies, and by championing the strengths of Atlantic Canada. Together, with Atlantic Canadians, we are building a stronger economy.

Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency

Venture Grade is a revolutionary university experience in which students raise funds to invest in privately-held entrepreneurial equity.

Venture Grade

Y Combinator is a startup accelerator that invests in a large number of startups twice a year. It created a new model for funding startups. Twice a year, the company invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups. The startup accelerator works intensively with the companies for three months, to get them into the best possible shape and refine their pitch to investors. Each cycle culminates in Demo Day when the startups present their companies to a carefully selected, invite-only audience.

Y Combinator

Unpopular Ventures invests early in tech startups before they gain popularity. They focus on unconventional opportunities, believing that innovation often arises outside the mainstream. They support teams exploring new markets, unique ideas, and challenging endeavors. Despite their unconventional approach, their early-stage startups have attracted follow-on funding from top investors. Established in 2019, they now invest from both a syndicate and a rolling fund, with $151 million in assets under management (AUM).

Unpopular Ventures

At Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), they fund Canadian cleantech projects and coach the companies that lead them as they move their ground-breaking technologies to market.   SDTC’s support of cleantech translates into jobs, growth, and export opportunities for Canadian companies, as well as economic, environmental and health benefits for all Canadians.    They are independent but don’t work alone. A big part of their role is building and sustaining networks of partners and stakeholders from private industry, academia and governments, at home and abroad. They operate at arm’s length and receive funding from the Government of Canada.

Sustainable Development Technology Canada

ParticleX is a tech-based startup investor and innovation enabler based in Hong Kong. We combine network, capital and research resources, accelerating the pace of innovative technology and helping the early-stage startups to win cross-border opportunities across Asia. Our technology focuses on disruptive technologies and innovation in various applications for business processes.

Particle Accelerator Limited (ParticleX)

KorrAI

At KorrAI, we strive to mitigate the effects of climate change and promote a future with robust, resilient infrastructure.  Our approach integrates satellite data, IoT, and AI to assess the physical integrity of critical structures like bridges, dams, mine sites, and highways, enabling informed engineering and maintenance decisions.

KorrAI Technologies Inc. is a Canadian geospatial company specializing in advanced earth observation and remote monitoring solutions. The company leverages artificial intelligence, machine learning, and satellite imagery to provide valuable insights for various industries. KorrAI's proprietary technology integrates multiple data sources, including satellite radars and cloud-computing algorithms, to detect millimeter-level changes in surface elevation and ground motion. This capability allows for comprehensive monitoring of transportation networks, utilities, mining operations, urban infrastructure, and other critical assets.

Lancaster Resources and KorrAI Join Forces to Revolutionize Lithium and Critical Mineral Exploration with Artificial Intelligence

Leading Geospatial Companies in Canada: Mapping the Future

Greenridge Exploration Announces Partnership with KorrAI Technologies

KorrAI Technologies (Technology)

Greenridge Exploration announces partnership with KorrAI Technologies

Augmenting the mining value chain with technology and automation

Mining Tech

Lancaster Resources Engages KorrAI Technologies Inc. for Uranium Exploration Using AI Advanced Geospatial Solutions

KorrAI Technologies Inc. is a Canadian geospatial company specializing in advanced earth observation and remote monitoring solutions. The company leverages artificial intelligence, machine learning, and satellite imagery to provide valuable insights for various industries. KorrAI's proprietary technology integrates multiple data sources, including satellite radars and cloud-computing algorithms, to detect millimeter-level changes in surface elevation and ground motion. This capability allows for comprehensive monitoring of transportation networks, utilities, mining operations, urban infrastructure, and other critical assets.
KorrAI's platform employs well-established techniques such as InSAR (Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar) to offer broad monitoring capabilities that were previously unfeasible with ground-based instruments alone. The company's services include the detection of subtle ground motions, providing options for monitoring frequency and spatial resolution. KorrAI's geospatial web platform enables easy visualization and analysis of complex data, translating it into actionable insights for clients.
Key customers and partnerships
In February 2024, KorrAI entered into a strategic partnership with Lancaster Resources Inc., a North American lithium exploration company. This collaboration aims to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of mineral exploration, particularly for lithium and other critical minerals essential for green energy technologies.
In March 2024, KorrAI partnered with Greenridge Exploration Inc. to implement its hyper-spectral imaging technology on the Nut Lake Uranium Project in Nunavut, Canada. This partnership is expected to aid in identifying mineralized outcrops and improve the efficiency of Greenridge's exploration program. KorrAI's technology will be used to identify areas of interest for ground exploration in Greenridge's 2024 exploration program.

Oxbotica (also known as Oxa) is a British autonomous vehicle software developer founded in 2014 by Oxford professors Paul Newman and Ingmar Posner. The company has developed a suite of autonomous vehicle software products, including Oxbotica Driver, Oxbotica Cloud, and Oxbotica MetaDriver. Oxbotica's Universal Autonomy technology aims to enable any vehicle, regardless of size or location, to operate autonomously, safely, and sustainably. The company's software can be applied to various industries and use cases, including mining, energy, goods delivery, shared passenger transportation, agriculture, and airports.Oxbotica's technology integrates a range of autonomous vehicle functionalities, such as device drivers, mapping, obstacle detection, sensor perception, and prediction. The company's MetaDriver tool utilizes artificial intelligence in the metaverse to generate simulated scenarios for testing autonomous vehicle operations without physical driving. In May 2022, Oxbotica achieved a significant milestone by conducting Europe's first zero-occupancy trial of a fully autonomous electric vehicle on publicly accessible roads in Oxford.The company has established partnerships with various organizations to accelerate the adoption of autonomous driving solutions. For instance, Oxbotica is collaborating with ZF to develop self-driving passenger shuttles for airports, and with BP to automate vehicles for wind and solar farms. The company has also worked with Ocado Group to streamline goods delivery processes using autonomous vehicles.Key customers and partnershipsOxbotica has formed strategic partnerships with several companies across different sectors. The company is working with BP to develop autonomous vehicles for use in energy applications, particularly in wind and solar farms. Ocado Group, a leading online grocery technology company, has partnered with Oxbotica to explore autonomous delivery solutions.In the mining sector, Oxbotica is advancing an "open autonomy" mining solution in Canada in collaboration with Wenco International Mining Systems. The company has also partnered with AppliedEV to conduct autonomous vehicle trials.Oxbotica has established a collaboration with Google Cloud to accelerate the deployment of its autonomous software platform globally. This partnership aims to combine Google Cloud's expertise in cloud infrastructure with Oxbotica's autonomous vehicle software to create scalable, safe, and reliable autonomous driving solutions for businesses with transportation in their value chain.

Uptake is a leader in predictive analytics software-as-a-service (SaaS) for the industrial sector, focusing on translating data into smarter operations. The company's flagship product, Uptake Fleet, is a comprehensive predictive maintenance solution for the transportation industry. Uptake Fleet leverages advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) to predict vehicle failures, optimize maintenance strategies, and improve overall fleet performance.
Uptake Fleet's capabilities include Work Order Analytics, which enables users to predict vehicle failures down to the component level using existing internal work order data. The platform provides component-level survival curves, aggregate and individual unit component analytics, and allows users to set thresholds for specific vehicle components to create alerts and influence risk scores. Uptake Fleet also supports various sensor analytics endpoints, including outputs from the Geotab Electrical System Rating (ESR) module, to generate insights on the health of critical system components.
The company's technology has demonstrated significant benefits for its users, including a 30-day lead time in detecting leaks compared to traditional manual inspections, an 83% reduction in significant tire failures, a 5% improvement in fuel economy, and a 91% improvement in safe tire driving days. Uptake's solutions have been recognized by industry analysts and publications, including Gartner, Verdantix, the World Economic Forum, CNBC, and Forbes.
Key customers and partnerships
Uptake has established partnerships with several industry leaders to expand its reach and capabilities. In July 2023, the company partnered with Platform Science, a connected vehicle platform, to extend data-driven insights and predictive maintenance capabilities to some of the country's largest vehicle fleets. This collaboration allows Platform Science users to access Uptake Fleet through the Virtual Vehicle platform.
In February 2023, Uptake entered into a commercial agreement with Daimler Truck North America (DTNA), enabling the use of innovative data-as-a-service (DaaS) technology to power Uptake Fleet. This partnership allows DTNA customers to leverage Uptake's data-driven insights to help reduce unplanned fleet downtime and maintenance costs.
Uptake's customer base includes prominent organizations such as United Road, a leader in heavy-haul transportation services in North America, which deployed Uptake Fleet across its fleet to cut maintenance costs and increase driver mileage. The company has also worked with Caterpillar and Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiaries, demonstrating its ability to serve diverse industries and large-scale operations.

Uptake

KoBold Metals is a California-based artificial intelligence-powered mineral exploration company founded in 2018. The company utilizes AI, machine learning, and cloud computing techniques to assess the composition of the subsurface and identify potential mineral deposits, particularly focusing on critical materials needed for electric vehicle batteries and clean energy technologies. KoBold's primary focus is on discovering and developing deposits of metals such as copper, cobalt, lithium, and nickel.
At the core of KoBold's technology is TerraShed, a data platform that aggregates and structures large scientific data collections, making them quickly available for analysis. The company employs various proprietary modules and machine learning models to guide decisions throughout the exploration process. KoBold's approach combines AI systems with geoscience expertise to determine what information will best reduce uncertainty in finding minable ore deposits.
In July 2024, KoBold announced a significant copper discovery in Zambia, estimated to be the largest in over a decade. The company's Mingomba project is expected to produce at least 300,000 tons of copper annually once fully operational, with an estimated value of billions of dollars per year for decades. The deposit boasts copper ore grades of more than 5%, significantly higher than the industry average of around 0.6%.
KoBold's exploration methods have shown promising results. During a 2022 field season in northern Quebec, the company's AI-guided approach led to hitting nickel-sulfide mineralization in eight out of 10 drill holes, a success rate approximately 10 times better than the industry average for similarly isolated drill holes. The company currently has more than 60 exploration-stage projects across several countries.

KoBold Metals

MineSense Technologies Ltd. is a Vancouver-based company that develops smart technologies for the metallic mining industry. The company's flagship products, ShovelSense and BeltSense, provide real-time, sensor-based ore sorting solutions for mines. ShovelSense is a sensor installed on mining equipment that scans and estimates the grade of material in every shovel and bucket, while BeltSense is used on conveyance at different points of the mine's downstream operations. These technologies enable mine operators to make real-time decisions early in the mining process, routing ore to the mill for valuable mineral extraction or to the waste pile.
MineSense's solutions aim to improve ore grade control, operational profitability, and carbon intensity across the metals mining industry. The company's technology allows mining companies to see the value of material as it is being mined, bucket by bucket, addressing challenges such as depletion of high-quality metal resources and increasing political and environmental barriers. By more accurately sorting ore from waste, MineSense's technologies decrease environmental impacts through reduced greenhouse gas emissions, water and energy consumption per unit of metal recovered, and enable mines to optimize the use of resources.
Initially focused on copper mining, MineSense has expanded its capabilities to other base metals and is developing methods to predict non-metal material characteristics, such as ore hardness. The company's technology can increase metal recovery materially, with production from operating mines increasing by 5% to 25% on existing infrastructure. In December 2023, MineSense launched the MineSense Data Portal, a platform that leverages real-time data from ShovelSense and BeltSense to provide mining operators with data-driven insights for mine-to-mill optimization.

MineSense

SafeAI is a Santa Clara, California-based company that develops autonomous solutions for heavy equipment in the construction and mining industries. Founded in 2017 by Bibhrajit Halder, SafeAI specializes in retrofitting existing vehicles with autonomous technology, regardless of manufacturer or vehicle type. The company's core product is an OEM-agnostic retrofit kit that includes hardware and proprietary autonomy software, enabling equipment owners to convert their existing fleets into self-operating robotic assets. SafeAI's autonomous platform utilizes advanced multimodal sensors, including LiDAR, radar, and cameras, along with onboard processing power to enable real-time decision-making.
In December 2023, SafeAI and Japanese construction company Obayashi unveiled what they claim is the world's first haul truck retrofitted to be both autonomous and electric. The companies converted a Caterpillar 725 articulated dump truck, demonstrating the potential for combining autonomy and electrification in heavy industry. SafeAI's technology aims to improve safety, productivity, and environmental performance on work sites. The company estimates that autonomy alone can boost environmental performance by up to 13%, while swapping diesel for electricity can cut net lifecycle emissions by over 60%.
SafeAI has also developed the SafeAI Autonomous Framework (SAF), which it describes as the first operating system purpose-built for heavy industry. In August 2023, SAF achieved ASIL D certification, the highest safety integrity level in the industry. This certification reinforces SafeAI's commitment to safety and validates its efforts to create a highly reliable operating system for heavy industry applications.

SafeAI

Hardware and software solutions that use technology such as AI/ML, LiDAR, and computer vision to discover sites with mining prospects

Solutions that use data from IoT sensors, site logs, and other data points to provide insights, simulations, and 3D representations of a mining site that can be used to visualize environments and create geological models

Solutions that use AI/ML, geospatial imagery, and even novel approaches such as vibration analysis to provide insights, support predictive maintenance, and help optimize worker productivity, fleet utilization, and other site resources, such as raw material inventory

Solutions to retrofit site vehicles with autonomous hardware and other autonomous and remote-controlled tools that support workflows, such as underground mapping and remote data capture

Providers of devices such as sensors to monitor real-time location and other environmental variables in an underground environment

Leverages robotics technology to automate certain vehicles and machinery to support mining activities

Leverages AI/ML to capture data from various sites and monitor data and information feeds

Autonomous machinery and equipment for underground mines and dark and constricted spaces

KorrAI

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