Uvaro founded by Joseph Fung fills the overwhelming unfulfilled demand for sales talent at scale-up companies in North America’s emerging technology hubs.
Waterloo has the most number of startups and tech companies per capita in the world. With world-class talent coming out from University of Waterloo and many great local tech companies this region is bound for innovation. In this post, we are beyond thrilled to bring you some of the hottest up coming tech companies in Waterloo. Behind these companies are the incredible founders and teams that are leading the way for building the next big thing. Be sure to check them out as many are also hiring and building their teams.
17) IntelliCulture
From left co-founders are Michael Wu, Ramin Shaikhi, and Cole Powers.
IntelliCulture provides a farm management software (FMS) to drive sustainable farming practices through actionable insights, efficiency improvements & risk mitigation. The FMS provides easy to digest insights into spray coverage, equipment health and labor management. Through these three domains, IntelliCulture digitizes and automate the management process for farms.
16) LabsCubed
From the left co-founders are Jeffrey Petracca, Khaled Boqaileh, and Ammar Jafar.
LabsCubed team is passionate about material science and robotics, leading to the ultimate vision to help create the materials of the future. From rockets to cell phones, material innovation is at the heart of many great human leaps in history. Founded in 2016 during the founder’s graduate studies at the University of Waterloo, LabsCubed was conceived with the aim of revolutionizing material development and testing through automated hardware and intelligent software. The rapidly growing team completely designs, engineers, and builds all our hardware and software at their facility in Kitchener. Their products have won multiple awards and have been installed in industry leading laboratories at major global brands.
15) TAMVOES Health
From left co-founders are Madison McBay and Jessica Lunshof.
TAMVOES is a female-founded health tech start-up company, which empowers individuals to store and manage their health information. The TAMVOES platform is the answer to the age-old question, who is responsible for storing your health information? Motivated by the personal experience of co-founders Jessica Lunshof and Madison McBay, each identified a need for an individual-focused platform that could save and share medical history, vaccine records, and even symptoms, confidentially between caregivers, patients, and their various professionals. TAMVOES has partnered with BlackBerry Spark and MedStack to build a ensure that users can rely on the accessibility, reliability and security of their data. Ultimately, TAMVOES is focused on the preventative aspects of health care instead of the reactive approach which dominates the health care system today.
14) CodeGem
Stephanie Mills is the founder at CodeGem.
CodeGem is a team management platform built to optimize software teams. CodeGem collects feedback and automatically pulls data from the tools teams already use to generate comprehensive dashboards that capture the full picture of a team; from productivity to collaboration to satisfaction. More importantly, CodeGem feeds these analytics into tools like their 1-on-1 framework, to facilitate continuous improvement and help managers and engineers, set, measure and achieve gems together! (“Gem”: Goals with evidence that can be measured). Founded in 2019, they are a growing, close-knit, fast-paced team with strong experience working at top companies including Apple, CentralReach, and Uber. CodeGem is funded and backed by GarageCapital, CapitalT, The Thiel Fellowship, and several notable serial entrepreneurs.
13) Adaptive Pulse
From left cofounders are Johnson Phanyaseng and Jennifer Huynh.
Adaptive Pulse predicts and identifies at-risk and expansion customers for SaaS businesses to prioritize retention efforts, reduce churn, and increase revenues.
The platform analyzes internal and external data sources including structured and unstructured data to provide a unified view of the customer, which segments are the most at-risk, likely to expand, and how to successfully convert them. Adaptive Pulse has reached 97% accuracy in predictive churn model and is currently serving both Canada and the U.S. markets. It has reached an oversubscribed pre-seed round of funding through global investors, including early-stage funds and angels from the U.S., Canada, and UK.
12) Aterlo Networks
From right co-founders are Scot Loach, Gerrit Nagelhout, and Dan Siemon.
Aterlo Networks is the creator of Preseem, a cloud-based platform that helps local and regional Internet Service Providers (ISPs) delight their subscribers and lower support costs by measuring, analyzing, and optimizing network performance to improve the subscriber experience. Aterlo was formed in 2014 when a team of network industry professionals with over 30 years of combined experience created a buffer-free streaming solution called NightShift. This initial product enabled people living in remote areas to effortlessly stream high-definition videos regardless of the quality of their internet connection. By 2017, thanks to valuable insights gained from customers, the team realized there was a larger opportunity to better serve rural communities and went to work on developing a new product, Preseem. With Preseem, Aterlo expanded its focus from optimizing video streaming for internet subscribers to improving all aspects of the subscriber Quality of Experience (QoE). Preseem now provides real-time network monitoring tools that help ISPs proactively address issues and deliver consistent, high-quality internet to subscribers that meets the growing need for streaming, online gaming, video calls, and reliable internet access and speed.
11) Pronti
Mila Banerjee is the Founder & CEO at Pronti.
Pronti has built a free wardrobe assistant mobile app that answers both what-to-wear and what-to-buy. Users upload their closet items and they use artificial intelligence to create outfits and learn your style and context. Through the daily wardrobe assistant, Pronti encourages people to use what they have – an important environmental sustainability issue (UN Sustainability Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production). What-to-buy is also artificial intelligence that lets you see your closet items with new items and personalizes recommendations. Pronti helps boutique brands and retailers be discovered. Currently retailers with Shopify stores can apply to be recommended. Discover what Pronti can do on the iOS and Android app store.
10) Lumaki Labs
From left Gerry Saporito (co-founder & CTO), Mylene Tu (co-founder & CEO)
Lumaki Labs is an EdTech startup on a mission to help organizations unlock early talent. They operate in the Employer-University Collaboration (EUC) space to help employers and schools manage and scale their early talent programs through automation and engagement. As a team of engineering students at the University of Waterloo, the co-founders have a passion for the future of work.
9) RouteThis
Co-Founders from the right – Matt Gardner, Graham Kennery, and Jason Moore
Founded in 2012, RouteThis’s original incarnation was as a direct-to-consumer video streaming service that quickly grew to over 4,000,000 customers. To their support team’s dismay, no existing tools provided sufficient visibility to effectively diagnose and troubleshoot issues within the increasingly complex home network environment. They realized that customer care teams within Internet Service Providers and smart home brands were facing the same support expectations as them, and launched RouteThis as a standalone B2B offering. The company now provides a platform for support agents to better address WiFi issues, tools for customer Self-Help to prevent calls from coming in, and tools for ISP technicians to ensure the best installation quality possible for new customers. RouteThis has been seeing tremendous growth, doubling in size every year and chasing their vision of automating technical support so you never have to make another support call. With the pandemic fueling calls to ISPs for better connections in-home and to smart home companies to keep tech toys working perfectly, the company has accelerated in every aspect and they’re hiring across all departments as they partner with customers such as Wyze, START.ca, WIND, Spark NZ, Sky Broadband, Oculus, and Amazon. Previously, RouteThis has taken investment from Round 13, Garage Capital, SV Angel, and a variety of angels and advisors.
8) ISARA
Scott Totzke is the CEO and Co-Founder at ISARA Corporation.
ISARA is a Canadian company founded in 2015 that started with a mission to help customers on their journey to transition to quantum-safe security. Over the past 6 years, ISARA has become a trusted partner to companies in the automotive, aerospace, government, security solutions and OEM verticals. Working together, ISARA has made it possible to implement post quantum cryptography and enable cryptographic agility. To foster these partnerships, ISARA has launched several first-of-its-kind solutions including the recently announced ISARA Advance® Crypto Agility Suite, a leading cryptography management platform for discovery, management, and remediation of encryption, ISARA Radiate™ Quantum-safe Toolkit, a quantum-safe cryptographic library and integration tools for developers, such as ISARA Catalyst™ Agile Methodologies. Many customers ask what steps they can take to begin preparing infrastructure for a crypto migration in light of the looming quantum threat to cryptography. ISARA Advance enables organizations to automate the discovery of the cryptography in use throughout their enterprise infrastructure so they have the insight and data to make informed and strategic migration plans. ISARA specializes in creating crypto-agile and quantum-safe cryptography tools and solutions for today’s information technology ecosystems. Our evolved mission is to enable seamless cryptography upgrades and to clear the path to quantum-safe security for enterprises and government agencies.
7) Auvik Networks
Auvik team attending HackerNest event in Waterloo.
Auvik is cloud-based software, that makes complex, yet essential, network management simple. It provides the visibility and automation IT professionals need, to focus on the work that delivers the greatest value to their organization. Today, Auvik’s software helps IT teams manage more than four million devices on over 50,000 networks. Auvik recently secured US$250 million investment from US-based private equity firm Great Hill Partners, and is one of the fastest growing North American technology companies — a consecutive winner of the Deloitte Technology Fast 50, Deloitte Fast 500, and recognized as the #1 ranked Canadian company in the FT Americas’ Fastest Growing Companies last year.
6) Faire
Co-founders from left to right, Max Rhodes, CEO; Jeff Kolovson, COO; Marcelo Cortes, CTO; and Daniele Perito, CDO
Faire is transforming the wholesale experience for entrepreneurs everywhere in order to enable small businesses to compete against competitors a million times their size. They are using the power of tech, data, and machine learning to connect over 30,000 of the world’s best independent brands with over 250,000 local retailers, helping to create an unstoppable global community of small business owners. Founded in 2017, Faire is powered by the idea that the future is local.
5) MappedIn
Hongwei Liu is the Founder & CEO at Mappedin.
Mappedin provides industry leading tools for property owners and operators to manage their dynamic indoor maps and build digital wayfinding experiences into their customer-facing applications. Founded in 2011, Mappedin is headquartered in Waterloo, Canada. Their clients manage over 600M square feet of indoor space within the Mappedin platform and in 2019 it has served over 140 million directions to people navigating the indoors.
4) GooseChase
Andrew Cross is the Founder & CEO at GooseChase.
GooseChase is an online platform that helps you run real-world scavenger hunts. Founded in 2011 at a University of Waterloo hackathon with the simple idea of making scavenger hunts easy to create, GooseChase is now used by families, friends, schools, non-profits, cities, festivals, large enterprises, and universities across the globe. From fundraisers to math lessons, and virtual team events to campus orientation weeks, GooseChase helps people create engaging, goofy, and out of the ordinary experiences to be enjoyed from anywhere.
3) Uvaro
From left Donna Litt COO, Derek Hall Co-founder, and Joseph Fung CEO.
Uvaro is on a mission to help the world’s professionals lead more fulfilling careers. Their career success platform provides just in time training, paid apprenticeships, and career development services that help North America’s under-employed land successful roles in tech. Uvaro members succeed more, earn more, and launch new careers within three weeks.
2) Chocolate Soup
From Left: Megan Hall (late co-founder and VP Ops), Pj Lowe (co-founder and Chief Gifting Officer), Dan Silivestru (co-founder and CEO)
Chocolate Soup was born out of a sheer passion for building great company culture to support happy, caring, and respectful teams. They help companies of all sizes discover the power of radical generosity, surprise, and delight by recognizing important employee milestones with expertly curated personal gifts. Chocolate Soup offers subscription-based employee recognition plans and remote-team gift boxes that can be customized for your culture and team. Over the last 12 months, they have seen 5x growth in their business and expanded their facilities twice to support additional growth.
1) Index Exchange
Andrew Casale is the President and CEO at Index Exchange.
Index Exchange is a global advertising marketplace who’s technology connects media owners and buyers to buy and sell advertising space, all within milliseconds. Founded in 2001 and now with over 500 employees and offices in North America, EMEA, and APAC, Index Exchange is an engineering-first organization focused on learning, collaboration, and innovation. The company is led by President and CEO Andrew Casale. In Canada, the company has offices in Kitchener-Waterloo, Toronto, and Montreal, with dozens of open roles in each. For a full list, click here.
Massive thanks to the founders and their team for sharing their story with our online startup community. Know any great tech companies we should feature? Get in touch with us.
Thank you note to Headway our Official Sponsor: Headway.io