Time and time again, Waterloo has exceeded expectations and broken records in the global tech scene. We call it punching above our weight, but it happens so often that phrase might be out of date.
This past month has seen a flurry of tech news, with new CBRE rankings, investments in many local tech scale-ups and so much more.
Here are the top stories from July 2021:
CBRE identifies Waterloo as North America’s #1 small tech talent market
The latest CBRE report states that Canada’s major and emerging tech hubs have experienced faster tech job growth than nearly all its US counterparts.
Six out of the top 10 North American markets in terms of tech labour concentration are Canadian, one of them being Waterloo. In fact, we were named the #1 small tech talent market in North America, seeing 47% growth in tech talent employment since 2015. This is an incredible achievement, especially considering the fact that we graduated from being top-ranked in the emerging tech talent market category just last year.
Arctic Wolf reaches $4.3B valuation after Series F raise
Arctic Wolf, an innovative cybersecurity company with its primary tech office in Waterloo, secured $150M in funding this month after an exceptional year of revenue growth. With this funding, Arctic Wolf will continue to expand its operations worldwide, bringing new products to market and accelerating growth even further.
Auvik Networks announces a $250M investment
Auvik Networks is an award-winning Waterloo-based provider of cloud-based network management software. With their new $250M investment, they expect to accelerate product development, business expansion and reach, as well as other strategic growth initiatives.
Laurier’s ScaleUp companies top $1B in funding
This month, Wilfrid Laurier University announced that the companies from the ScaleUp program have surpassed $1B in new capital raised. The program seeks to help high-potential Canadian companies transition from founder-led organizations to scalable businesses that are competitive in global markets.
UWaterloo’s autonomous vehicle team competes in international competition
The SAE AutoDrive Challenge had teams convert a stock Chevrolet Bolt EV into a fully autonomous vehicle. UWaterloo’s student-led team (called WATonomous) is made up of 50 members and two of the university’s professors. WATonomous came in second, receiving multiple awards for Safety/Technical Reports (1st place), Social Responsibility (2nd and 3rd place) and Concept Design (3rd place).
UWaterloo receives $8.2M in funding from Federal Government
The University of Waterloo will establish the Additive Manufacturing Alliance (AMA) using the $8.2M funding from the Federal Government. This alliance will leverage the school’s Multi-Scale Additive Manufacturing (MSAM) lab and provide businesses in Ontario with advanced manufacturing technologies.
New faces in the Waterloo tech scene shake things up
New leadership at Communitech, the Accelerator Centre, and the University of Waterloo mark the beginning of a new era for Waterloo’s tech scene. Find out what you need to know about the new leaders Chris Albinson, Jay Krishnan and Vivek Goel in our article here.