The Power List: Technology – Macleans.ca

YesHe’s propping up a multibillion-dollar online gambling industry and improving cybersecurity while she’s at it.
This year’s Super Bowl was the most-watched television event since the moon landing, thanks in large part to an American pop star named Taylor Swift. It was also the most bet Super Bowl in history, thanks in large part to a Canadian tech entrepreneur named Anna Sainsbury. Online sports betting may be the only thing that has grown more than Swiftmania in recent years: from $47 million in 2018 to $7.26 billion in 2023 in the US alone, and is projected to nearly double in the next four years. And Sainsbury’s GeoComply, a geolocation program that allows gaming platforms to enforce other states’ gambling laws, is the technology underpinning the entire process. Her company reached a valuation of $1 billion in 2021. Now she is setting her sights on an even bigger mission: eradicating cyber fraud from every corner of the Internet.

He’s breaking records at Canada’s largest technology company.
The Canadian tech giant silenced any talk of a post-pandemic recession with a record Black Friday and 26 percent growth in 2023. This was a victory for Tobi Lütke, who recently led a culture-changing common sense revolution that included a 20 percent staff cuts, plus bans on meetings with more than two employees and “pineapple and pizza debates” (shorthand for hours wasted in Slack chats). Shares instantly soared 10 percent after Shopify integrated with Amazon Prime and shed its logistics and warehouse money pit, a move that boosted revenue by 25 percent in the third quarter. The next step: the “dawn of the AI ​​era,” which Lütke announced in an internal memo. The newly launched Shopify Magic will provide the company’s two million merchants with a suite of artificial intelligence tools to manage administrative tasks, customer inquiries and marketing.

Its $5 billion plant will boost Canada’s electric vehicle capacity
The first large-scale electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant in Canada will also be one of the largest of its kind in North America – a $5 billion joint investment between multinational automaker Stellantis and the South Korean giant of LG Energy Solution batteries that will secure Ontario’s place as an electric vehicle hub of the future and reestablish Windsor as an automotive powerhouse. Since taking over as CEO at NextStar, Lee has dedicated his time to managing the political combustion — specifically, a dispute with the feds over funding and backlash over a plan to bring in guest workers from South Korea. With those hurdles cleared, the new facility is on track to produce two million batteries a year, a significant contribution to Stellantis’ promise that 50 percent of its North American sales will be electric vehicles by 2030.

It’s making Internet passwords obsolete
When Jeff Shiner took the reins at 1Password, the company focused on solving one of the most annoying problems of the modern era: forgetting your password. Twelve years later, with a $9 billion valuation, a slew of celebrity investors (Ryan Reynolds, Robert Downey Jr., Ashton Kutcher), and a $744 million Series C funding round, it seeks to make that original mission be redundant. Following the acquisition of Passage, a Texas-based online security startup, Shiner’s company is moving toward passcode technology, a passwordless, virtually hacker-proof login standard powered by bioindicators. like fingerprints and faces. Many tech giants like Apple also plan to eliminate the password, but Shiner insists its software gives it an advantage, and recent wins (including a recent 50 percent growth in B2B sales) suggest its customers agree.

For quietly amassing one of the most important technology portfolios in the world
His more-is-more capital allocation strategy has earned him the nickname “Canada’s Warren Buffett” and provided his shareholders with a staggering 23,000 percent return. Since 2005, Constellation Software has spent $8.7 billion acquiring more than 1,000 companies (mostly small software companies that run monopolies in niche markets too small for competition) and serving unattractive industries like broadcasting. cable and mortgages (2023 acquisitions include WideOrbit and Optimal Blue). Instead of merging his companies or selling them off piecemeal, Leonard allows them to operate independently and use the steady return of cash to fund new acquisitions. Famously reclusive Leonard is allergic to flashy headlines, but nothing says sex appeal like a five-digit return on investment.

Their app attracts top students from all over the world.
In 2015, Martin Basiri launched ApplyBoard, an AI-based recruitment tool that helps foreign students apply to Western universities. That company earned a $3.2 billion valuation and became one of the hottest Canadian startups since BlackBerry. His new company, Passage, is opening the same academic opportunities to talent in the developing world: removing financial barriers for students in high-demand fields like STEM and healthcare through an app that connects applicants with funding opportunities and subsidies. It’s a win-win model that will help Canada address domestic labor shortages and immigration goals, and has already attracted $40 million in seed funding from ApplyBoard investor Drive Capital. A pilot project launching in 2024 will bring 100 women from Afghanistan to pursue STEM studies in Canada.

For making Google pay
Last year the Online News Act came into effect, requiring technology companies to compensate Canadian media outlets for content shared on their platforms. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, refused to pay and instead blocked Canadian news on its sites, and Google said it would also block Canadian news on its search engine for users in Canada. But after months of haggling with the world’s tech giants, the country’s new heritage minister scored a crucial victory in November, negotiating a $100 million deal with Google. It’s far less than the government originally wanted, but the victory is a step in the right direction and a ray of hope that other companies, like Meta, can one day return to the negotiating table.

It’s putting Canada on the lunar map.
When Artemis II lifts off in September 2025, it will be NASA’s first crewed flight to the Moon in 50 years and the first time a Canadian has participated in the trip. With Hansen, Canada finally earned a place at the space travel table. Born in London, Ontario, the former fighter pilot graduated from the Royal Military College’s space sciences program. In 2009 he won one of two positions in Canada’s space program among a pool of 5,350 applicants. In 2017 he became the first Canadian to lead NASA’s astronaut training program. And now he is ready to embark on a mission that will mark a “big leap” in the journey toward space colonization: confirming the capabilities of the Orion spacecraft at the lunar south pole, a place farther away than any other place man has gone. has ever traveled, but potentially hospitable to human life.

For shelling out cash to Canada’s top startups
After Isabelle Hudon took the top role at the BDC in 2021, the bank began focusing funding on startups with social impact. And unlike many leaders who promised to “build back better,” she has actually delivered. BDC’s $400 million Climate Tech Fund recently led a $2 million funding round for Montreal startup Green Graphite Technologies, which uses environmentally friendly graphite to power electric vehicles. Its $150 million Sustainability Venture Fund invested $3.5 million in Arolytics, a Calgary-based company that makes software for the oil and gas sector. Last fall, Hudon launched the Thrive Lab for Women, which will deploy $100 million in capital to women-led companies in partnership with 25 of the country’s top investors.

To compete to build the world’s first usable quantum computer
Vancouver-based startup Photonic isn’t the first Canadian contender in the race to build the world’s first usable quantum computer, but it looks like the horse worth betting on. Using the principles of subatomic physics, quantum computing can solve very complex problems at a speed that makes today’s laptops look like cave drawings. In 2022, Simmons and his team unveiled their breakthrough innovation: a silicon chip containing up to 150,000 quantum bits. You don’t need to know what that means, but Microsoft does. The software giant backed a $100 million funding round aimed at a commercial product over the next five years. Before then, expect “quantum ready” to become the inevitable new jargon of the tech world.

This story appears in the May issue of Maclean’s. You can buy the issue. here or subscribe to the magazine here.