In the past year, businesses have had to navigate a landscape marked by whiplash-inducing technological advancements, undeniably urgent evidence of climate change and ever-shifting consumer values that increasingly prioritize social responsibility. The companies that simply keep up with digital transformation, sustainability best practices and workplace wellness trends can survive, but it takes a future-focused commitment to driving meaningful impact to truly thrive in 2024 and beyond.
Together with judges Krista Jones, interim CEO of MaRS Discovery District, and Takara Small, award-winning tech reporter and podcaster, Canadian Business selected 25 companies that exemplify resilience, adaptability and an unwavering dedication to bettering lives both within and beyond our borders. Meet the companies that are redefining what it means to be an innovator.
Pontosense
Founded 2021
Headquarters Toronto
Founders Alex Qi, Yihong Qi and Muxin Ma
In 2017, at the Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas’s annual gizmo circus, tech entrepreneur Alex Qi watched a presentation for a biometric monitoring device that was unlike the heart-rate-tracking smartwatches already common at the time. Two wireless routers captured the heartbeat of an audience participant without any physical contact, instead using the same radio waves that Wi-Fi utilizes. He remembers Yihong Qi, a BlackBerry alum who was also attending the event, turning to him with a revelation: You could get even more detailed data using higher-frequency millimetre waves, or mmWaves, through a singular but more efficient sensor.
In 2021, the pair, along with health-tech entrepreneur Muxin Ma, officially co-founded Pontosense, with the aim of using mmWave technology to analyze environments, recognize patterns and offer actionable insights in a variety of settings. The applications of this technology could save lives on numerous fronts, they thought, from health care to vehicular safety to home security.
The underlying science is deceptively simple. Pontosense’s proprietary four-square-centimetre sensor emits high-frequency electromagnetic waves into the air. After bouncing off objects, those mmWaves reflect back onto the sensor, identifying micro-movements as subtle as a heartbeat with medical-grade accuracy from up to 15 metres away. Qi likens it to a bat’s echolocation—except Pontosense takes it to the next level. Using artificial intelligence and proprietary machine-learning tools, the company’s software is able to quickly isolate and remove unwanted noise from data—like a car’s vibrations when trying to measure the driver’s heartbeat—solving an issue that plagued previous iterations of mmWave tech.
Imagine the safety and security enhancements possible with a Pontosense sensor incorporated into a vehicle’s system. This sensor could flag a potential thief’s hand slipping through an open window or recognize signs of a driver being dangerously close to nodding off and trigger warnings accordingly. And it could significantly bolster child-presence detection, alerting a distracted parent to a toddler left in the backseat. Qi says Pontosense is already working with most major car manufacturers, including Tesla. He estimates that 100,000 Pontosense boosted vehicles will roll off assembly lines in 2024.
Homes are a bigger challenge for the sensors to map out, but there is great potential for life-saving interventions in this realm too. Pontosense’s AgeTech arm is personal for Qi; had the technology been around, he says, it would have alerted his family when his elderly grandfather fell in the middle of the night, an event that led to his untimely death from pneumonia. It’s a scenario that older adults must increasingly consider. Falls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries among seniors. With further advancements, Qi anticipates a future where Pontosense sensors could help identify signs of other potential health issues “weeks, months and maybe even years in advance.”
The versatility of Pontosense’s technology has found its way into unexpected applications too—such as monitoring cheetahs’ stress levels at an African wildlife sanctuary to help in their mating efforts— illustrating Qi’s aspiration to create universally accessible innovations beyond what he initially envisioned: “You want to create something that anybody can use.”
Spring
Founded 2014
Headquarters Vancouver
Founders Keith Ippel and Bonnie Foley-Wong
A decade ago, Keith Ippel noticed major gaps in Canada’s venture-capital landscape. Despite start-ups having access to practical tools, mentorship programs and networking opportunities, none of these resources truly prioritized positive social impact as much as they did financial returns. Without intervention, he thought, corporate Canada appeared destined to continue treating social responsibility as an afterthought.
Founded in 2014, Spring was created to empower socially minded capitalists, from founders to angel investors, through a variety of educational and acceleration programs.Early on, start-ups were its logical focal point—Ippel says that getting mature companies to account for their environmental and social impact can be more challenging. Starting with seedlings meant that Spring could invest its time (and often its capital) in people who already held social responsibility as elemental to their business. With a bit of nurturing, these ventures could soon be investment-ready.
Meanwhile, many would-be impact investors simply didn’t know where to start. They had the resources but still needed help identifying opportunities to generate returns on investment and impact. Spring offers coaching in this area too, including through its Impact Investor Challenge, a series of multi-week programs aimed at navigating the fundraising process.
Now, Spring could influence venture capitalism from all angles: as a coach to both sides, as the referee brokering deals and, occasionally, as a player in its own right. Through its Spring Impact Capital fund, Spring typically invests $250,000 per start-up.
Last year, Spring bolstered its institutional knowledge with the purchase of Future Capital, an accelerator focused on Black- and women-founded start-ups. The acquisition brought founder and CEO Marlon Thompson into Spring’s C-suite as chief experience officer.
A decade into Spring’s mission, the numbers tell the story of the firm’s far-reaching impact. It has worked with more than 3,100 entrepreneurs and 900 investors and helped facilitate over $50 million in funding. But as much as the first decade was about nurturing socially responsible capitalism, the theme of Spring’s next decade is standardization. In Ippel’s ideal future, companies would “no longer even be using the word ‘impact’” to qualify socially minded entrepreneurs and investors. If all goes to plan, impact may just be a given—a foundational shift toward a brighter business world.
Café William
Founded 1988
Headquarters Sherbrooke, Que.
Founder Serge Picard
It was a brainstorming session in 2020 that sparked one of Café William’s most unique innovations. The coffee roaster and wholesaler was in pursuit of an even greener supply chain for its organic and ethically sourced coffee, and co-owner Serge Picard had an idea: They could import their beans from South America to the company’s roasting plant in Sherbrooke, Que., via sailboat instead of gas-powered cargo ships.
Partnering with the Costa Rica-based Sailcargo, Café William invested in the construction of a zero-emissions cargo ship, which took its maiden voyage in December from Santa Marta, Colombia, to Quebec with almost 75,000 kilograms of green coffee beans. The month-long journey made Café William the first commercial coffee roaster in the world to use a zero-emissions ship to transport beans.
“This initiative is not just about reducing emissions; it’s also aimed at inspiring an industry shift toward more sustainable logistics solutions,” says Rémi Tremblay, Café William’s president and CEO. “We are setting a new standard for environmental responsibility in the coffee sector.”
Next, Tremblay and Picard collaborated with German manufacturer Neuhaus Neotec to develop an electric industrial roaster. The first 100 per cent electric commercial roaster debuted in Café William’s new Sherbrooke plant, which opened in February and has an annual roasting capacity of up to nine million kilograms of coffee.
Café William’s efforts to grow sustainably are paying off. The company experienced a 53 per cent increase in sales revenue from 2022 to 2023, making it the fastest-growing of the top 10 coffee brands in Canada.
Rebelstork
Founded 2019
Headquarters Toronto
Founder Emily Hosie
Roughly 100 million pieces of kid and baby gear are thrown away in the U.S. alone every year. Once a child has outgrown a stroller or no longer needs their car seat, it can be a challenge for parents to figure out what to do with this equipment. That’s why Emily Hosie, founder of online marketplace Rebelstork, is on a mission to ensure that these items find a new home—while helping parents recoup a bit of expense at the same time.
Rebelstork uses a proprietary AI-powered pricing technology called REV to generate real-time resale value on over 50,000 baby-gear models so customers can make smart decisions before deciding to buy or sell. Items are sold via a consignment model in which Rebelstork shares the profits with the seller. It’s a big step up from the free buy-andsell sites where fair pricing is anyone’s guess and, even when both parties have the best of intentions, deals often fall through.
Hosie, who was previously a merchandising executive for The TJX Companies, also aimed to tackle the problem of waste generated by retail returns. When she learned that many baby-gear brands and retailers don’t have the capacity to manage their returns (and, as a result, dispose of nearly $1.6 billion in product returns annually), she introduced ReLuvable. The re-commerce partnership program gives brands like Bumbleride and BabyBjörn the technology to process returns and resell items on Rebelstork’s marketplace.
Whereas a traditional retailer acquires inventory by purchasing it and marking it up for sale, Rebelstork acquires retailers’ returns and overstock and pays them a percentage after an item is sold on its marketplace. Hosie estimates that by doing so, they have successfully prevented 200,000 products from being discarded. Meanwhile, families are able to get like-new products at a discount.
Rebelstork also supports Canadian charities such as The New Mom Project, which provides basic baby necessities and resources to marginalized families, and Mamas for Mamas, which provides poverty relief to mothers and caregivers, through its year-round donation-matching program.
The company’s growth has been impressive too. Sales have risen from around $1 million in 2021 to over $10 million in 2023. It expanded into the United States in 2022 and now operates three returns-and-recommerce facilities, in New York, Tennessee and Toronto.
“As we go forward, we are continuously working to partner with more retailers, large and small,” says Hosie. “We want to further drive the circular economy and divert as much product from landfill as we can.”
Moderna
Founded 2010
Canadian headquarters Toronto
Founders Derrick Rossi, Timothy A. Springer, Kenneth R. Chien, Robert S. Langer and Noubar Afeyan
Founded in Cambridge, Mass., in 2010, Moderna became a household name a decade later thanks to its mRNA Covid-19 vaccine. This wasn’t just a scientific breakthrough; it was a game-changer in the global fight against the virus. Its momentum led to the announcement of Moderna Canada in 2020, setting the stage for the country’s first mRNA-manufacturing facility.
The Canadian subsidiary is one of several (there are also new divisions in Asia, Europe and Africa) that Moderna announced following the start of the pandemic. It’s part of a larger company movement to ensure equitable access to vaccines globally. The company’s 9,300-square-metre manufacturing facility in Laval, Que., was finished in February, and it will become the first facility in Canada to provide domestic commercial mRNA vaccine production.
This growth will allow Canada to be more self-sufficient and less reliant on vaccine supply from other markets, says Stefan Raos, Moderna Canada’s general manager. The Canadian subsidiary has already grown from 20 employees to more than 80, and the launch of the facility in Laval is expected to add even more to the team.
Though the science behind mRNA medicine is hardly new, its success as a vaccine against the Covid virus has brought forth new possibilities for treating other conditions. Currently, Moderna has a pipeline with 45 development programs in five therapeutic areas: cancer immunotherapy and infectious, cardiovascular, autoimmune and rare diseases. With the new facility in Laval, it will be easier for the organization to collaborate with local universities to explore this research while also providing better access to clinical studies for Canadians.
The company is at the cutting edge of sustainable operations too. The Laval facility is working toward LEED certification, the worldwide standard for energy efficiency in buildings. And Moderna Canada is the first pharmaceutical company in the country to join Environment and Climate Canada’s Net-Zero Challenge, which encourages businesses to implement strategies to transition their operations to net-zero emissions by 2050.
With the new manufacturing facility set to produce up to 100 million mRNA respiratory vaccine doses and provide more opportunities for domestic research, Moderna Canada represents a big leap forward in biotech innovation.
&Or Collective
Founded 2020
Headquarters Montreal
Founders Kristen King, Katie Green, Rosa Halpern and Drew Green
Starting a fashion brand that balances style with environmental responsibility is no easy feat, especially with textiles accounting for an estimated 450 million kilograms of waste annually in Canada. Enter retail-industry veterans Kristen King, Katie Green, Rosa Halpern and Drew Green, the co-founders of &Or Collective, who previously worked for companies like Aldo and L’Oréal. They launched their women-led clothing brand last summer with a collection of zero-to-landfill garments that form the basis of a conscious capsule wardrobe.
The company uses organic cotton and sheep’s wool certified for ethical treatment and sustainability. But what really sets &Or apart is its highly technical production. “Our ‘secret sauce’ is our use of flatbed knitting, a solution to the fashion industry’s alarming waste problem,” says Katie Green. Flatbed-knitting machines are digitally programmed so that only the precise amount of yarn needed to create a particular garment is used.
Circular-knitting machines, which are more commonly used in mass garment production, work faster than flatbed ones but have limited design flexibility. Moreover, traditional cut-and-sew manufacturing requires several panels of fabric and multiple machines—for shaping, cutting and sewing—to create a single piece of clothing. With &Or’s process, a ready-to- wear garment can be made on single machine, significantly reducing the amount of energy consumed and materials used. Green says their production methods reduce pre-consumer textile waste from an industry average of roughly 15 per cent to less than one per cent.
And that one per cent? &Or recycles it through a partnership with SuperCircle, a company that links consumer brands to specialized recyclers and also manages circularity for global retailers like Uniqlo and Reformation.
“Every step of the way has been about making thoughtful, deliberate choices,” Green says. By sustainably producing adaptable and highquality clothing, the company hopes customers will keep these staples in their wardrobes for years, not seasons. “We are set on redefining fast fashion by championing conscious consumption.”
Lightspeed
Founded 2005
Headquarters Montreal
Founder Dax Dasilva
For nearly two decades, Dax Dasilva has been dedicated to transforming outdated cash registers into relics of the past. According to the founder and CEO of point-of-sale software giant Lightspeed, those surprisingly still-prevalent payment terminals are literal and figurative black boxes. For business owners to truly seize control of their retail operations, he says, they need actionable, up-tothe- minute insights.
Lightspeed’s path toward a current-day market cap of $2.9 billion began with Dasilva learning to program on a Mac when he was 13. The computer’s design-forward hardware represented something aspirational— a future built at the intersection of high art and deep science. “When I started Lightspeed in 2005, it wasn’t to build a public company,” the now 47-year-old Dasilva says. “It was to win a design award from Steve Jobs.”
But even as an Apple acolyte, Dasilva saw a missed opportunity in its software, especially programs designed to support business functions. “The original Lightspeed had an almost iTunes-like interface to manage different elements of inventory, transaction flow and employee management,” he says.
For retail businesses, where cash is largely tied up in inventory, an omni-channel platform that enables visualization and optimization was a game-changer. Lightspeed’s ensuing advancements, including the incorporation of AI tools, further democratized data-driven decision-making within the retail and service sectors.
As Lightspeed scaled, the company sought out ways to innovate beyond its software through social-enterprise initiatives. For instance, with its Carbon Friendly Dining program, which it rolled out in 2017, diners at select restaurant partners could opt to offset the carbon footprint of their meal directly through Lightspeed’s POS software. The program, which costs restaurants nothing, has funded the planting of more than 1.5 million trees to date.
Lightspeed has also found ways to institute progressive people policies within its world-spanning offices. Most recently, the company, which now totals around 3,000 staff worldwide, overhauled its relocation policy to support employees who face potential health and safety issues due to anti-transgender legislation in their home state. Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives have always been core tenets of Lightspeed’s office culture, Dasilva says. In fact, the firm’s first four employees—its founder included—are members ofthe LGBTQ2S+ community.
Dasilva, having stepped back as Lightspeed’s CEO into an executive chair role in early 2022, returned to his former position in February, ready to oversee what he expects to be a profitable growth phase. In March, the founder hinted at the possibility of going private, driving up share values overnight.
Flygreen
Founded 2023
Headquarters Saint-Laurent, Que.
Founders Matt Keezer and Ryan Saroli
When you think about eco-friendly transportation, a private flight probably isn’t top of mind. After all, private jets are shown to be five to 14 times more polluting per passenger than commercial flights. But they aren’t going away any time soon—as of last year, there were about 23,370 private jets operating around the world—so Flygreen is working to significantly reduce their environmental footprint.
The company developed Jetpro, a tool that uses artificial intelligence to track flight options based on cost, convenience and environmental considerations. This helps Flygreen’s customers—the majority of whom are in Canada and the U.S.—select lower-impact flights. At the end of each trip, travellers get a report with a detailed overview of their flight’s environmental impact, including fuel consumption, CO2 emissions and the number of tree plantings required to capture the carbon emissions from their journey. So far, the company says it has contributed to the planting of 20,000 trees in Canada and the U.S. with the goal of supporting carbon sequestration and biodiversity preservation.
Co-founders Matt Keezer and Ryan Saroli are dedicated to making private jet charters as sustainable as possible until the industry transitions to electric aircraft. In the meantime, Flygreen is also working to make change on the ground with its Drive Green initiative. The internal program encourages the company’s staff—which has grown from two to 20—to switch to electric vehicles by providing monthly subsidies.
Jelly Academy
Founded 2018
Headquarters Fort Langley, B.C.
Founder Darian Kovacs
In 2018, Darian Kovacs, a Metis entrepreneur from B.C., founded Jelly Academy with two main objectives: to make Canadian education more inclusive for marginalized groups and to help arm the country’s workforce with the digital skills demanded by today’s job market.
Since its inception, the academy has trained around 3,000 students, emphasizing support for women, Indigenous individuals and people of colour. “We wanted to build a program that is intentionally accessible for under-represented people,” says Kovacs.
Jelly’s training focuses on the “new collar” industry: jobs that didn’t even exist a decade ago. With virtual courses on topics like digital marketing and website building, Jelly has caught the attention of both governments and industry partners that are looking to upskill their staff at scale. It recently collaborated with the Canadian Professional Sales Association to certify a B2B-sales course for its members and has been contracted through Upskill Canada and Digital, both parts of federal government initiatives designed to boost skills training and work-placement opportunities in digital industries across Canada.
This March, Jelly Academy joined the Digital Marketing Skills Canada consortium, a Canadian Marketing Association initiative that is funded by a $10.8-million grant from the federal government and will train 15,000 Canadian workers. It has also partnered with the Calgary-based Influence Mentoring Society to provide mentors for Indigenous learners navigating the post-secondary system.
Most of Jelly’s courses are aimed at post-secondary students or early-career professionals looking to gain specific accreditation, but the academy has recently licensed its introductory course to the governments of B.C. and Alberta so that students in Grade 12 can take its courses and receive credit as part of a workforcereadiness curriculum.
In 2023, 700 students completed Jelly Academy programs, and 75 per cent were from demographics that are under-represented in their respective sectors. Jelly provides scholarships for Indigenous learners and women, and in 2022, it was named a finalist in the DEI category of the B.C. Tech Association’s Technology Impact Awards.
Tech skills, says Kovacs, should be accessible to everyone, not just those with privilege or those who happen to be in the right place at the right time.
Quill
Founded 2019
Headquarters Toronto
Founder Fatima Zaidi
In 2018, Fatima Zaidi, who was then a VP of business development for a marketing agency, noticed a growing demand from clients interested in producing podcasts. In the afterglow of sensations like This American Life’s “Serial,” brands were starting to identify audio-format shows as an opportunity to engage their customers. But Zaidi found there was little, if anything, on the market that provided an end-to-end solution for podcasting—from production to audience growth to analytics management. So, in 2019, she launched Quill, a women-led full-service agency specializing in the production and marketing of high-quality podcasts.
When the pandemic took in-person events and other forms of experiential marketing off the table, many more companies turned to audio-format shows when it came to investing their ad dollars, and Quill’s customer base grew exponentially, attracting a host of new clients, such as Microsoft, Expedia and TD Canada Trust. In less than a year, Quill turned Zaidi’s initial investment of $10,000 into $1 million in revenue.
These big brands also wanted metrics for their podcasts to gauge their reach and success. And while platforms like Google Analytics and Semrush were available for analyzing website traffic, there was nothing comparable for analyzing podcast performance. In 2022, Quill launched CoHost, the first techenabled podcast-hosting platform to offer built-in demographic-based analytics. Within the first year, it gained more than 200 sign-ups. Quill also developed an additional tool called Prefix that enables podcasters and marketers to gain analytics and audience insights through the CoHost platform without having to change their podcast hosting provider. Currently, there is a trademark underway for the technology that enables both CoHost and Prefix.
Today, Quill produces an average of 30 branded podcasts per quarter throughout Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. Last year, the company made almost $4 million in revenue and is on track to reach $6 million in 2024. Currently, Zaidi and her team are working to integrate artificial intelligence into their products, which would allow clients to access more specific data with ease.
By turning a traditional content-marketing agency model into a leading software-as-a-service product, Quill is changing the podcast landscape globally. Having grown from a team of two to 25, the agency is continuing to collect podcast data from around the world and refine its platforms with the goal of making high-quality audio storytelling more accessible to brands everywhere.
Skip the Dishes
Founded 2012
Headquarters Winnipeg
Founders Chris Simair, Josh Simair
The food-delivery company, which helped establish Winnipeg as a tech hub, recently introduced innovations that make ordering easier and help couriers get paid faster. Also cool: Its new Skip for Business vertical lets companies provide staff with delivery credits as an alternative to in-office catering.
University Health Network
Founded 1999
Headquarters Toronto
Last year, Canada’s top research and teaching hospital network established a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence hub and appointed a chief AI scientist with the goals of better predicting surgical outcomes, improving techniques and personalizing treatment.
Turo
Founded 2009
Canadian headquarters Toronto
Founder Shelby Clark
Last year, the San Francisco-founded carshare service integrated a ChatGPT plug-in that enables users to input their travel details and receive a tailored list of vehicles, with the option to refine searches for specific features like bike racks or sunroofs.
Founded 2009
Canadian headquarters Toronto
Founders Paul Sciarra, Evan Sharp, Ben Silbermann
Everyone’s favourite digital-moodboard platform just introduced a novel technology that leverages AI to deliver more diverse body-type representation in search results within its fashion and wedding verticals.
Maple
Founded 2015
Headquarters Toronto
Founders Brett Belchetz, Stuart Starr, Roxana Zaman
The digital-health-service company recently partnered with provincial governments in Nova Scotia, PEI and New Brunswick to fill the health-care gap, improving accessibility for tens of thousands of Canadians without access to primary and urgent care.
Wahi Realty
Founded 2022
Headquarters Toronto
Founder Benjy Katchen
Using generative AI, Wahi lets prospective homebuyers search for property characteristics through images, making it easier to narrow in on things like “renovated kitchen” or “finished basement.” In 2023, it also introduced the industry’s first AI-powered realtor-recommendation system.
Willful
Founded 2017
Headquarters Toronto
Founders Kevin Oulds, Erin Bury
In 2023, the estateplanning disruptor expanded its digital business to sell physical kits that include a planning checklist, a documentstorage box and a code to redeem a will online, opening the door to new retail partners.
Qohash
Founded 2018
Headquarters Quebec City
Founders Jean Le Bouthillier, Dany Grimard, Guy Veilleux, Jean-Pierre Pelletier
As part of its mission to protect sensitive information, data-security company Qohash expanded its technology to cover more platforms, enabling organizations to monitor information and track potential breaches across multiple cloud environments.
Arcana
Founded 2019
Headquarters Toronto
Founders Alan Gertner, Felicia Snyder, Jeremy Hill
The experiential hospitality company, which has biophilic cabins across Ontario, just launched Arhome, a line of design-forward prefab cabins for individual purchase as private guest dwellings or short-term rental units.
Knix
Founded 2013
Headquarters Toronto
Founder Joanna Griffiths
Following a $400-million acquisition in 2022, the period-underwear brand just surpassed 3 million customers thanks to recent innovations like the new Ultra Leakproof briefs, which can absorb the equivalent of nine tampons.
Opentext
Founded 1991
Headquarters Waterloo, Ont.
Founders Frank Tompa, Gaston Gonnet, Tim Bray
After decades of helping companies with data and information management, OpenText launched its Aviator AI platform in the fall of 2023 to help its customers automate workflow processes and identify patterns and anomalies in data.
Xyon Health
Founded 2022
Headquarters Vancouver
Founders Victor Hasson, Simon Pimstone
Serial founder and clinician Dr. Simon Pimstone launched a DTC hair-growthsolutions brand that uses nanoparticle technology to slowly release medication, reducing drug side effects. The company is now expanding with a line of products for women.
Mejuri
Founded 2015
Headquarters Toronto
Founders Noura Sakkijha, Majed Masad, Masoud Sakkijha
Last spring, Mejuri invested US$1.5 million in sustainability programs that help restore habitats around precious-metal mining sites. The fine-jewellery brand also recently launched labgrown precious stones as part of its commitment to responsible sourcing.
Tadiem
Founded 1993
Headquarters Toronto
Founders Jack Bensimon, Peter Byrne
In 2022, creative-agency collective Tadiem set out to answer the question “Why would people want to return to an office?” Last year, the team unveiled their answer: The Combine, an innovative workspace in Toronto that co-functions as a social club where employees and guests alike can learn, shop, podcast, view art and more.
Busch Systems
Founded 1985
Headquarters Barrie, Ont.
Founder Craig Busch
Focused on waste management, diversion and reduction, this certified B corporation recently partnered with Plastic Bank to stop over 45,000 kilograms of waste from entering the ocean.