{"id":107906,"date":"2018-12-07T14:05:28","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T19:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techvibes.com\/?p=107906"},"modified":"2018-12-13T17:14:39","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T22:14:39","slug":"funding-roundup-montreal-ai-chainvu-bios","status":"publish","type":"magazine","link":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/magazine\/funding-roundup-montreal-ai-chainvu-bios","title":{"rendered":"Funding Roundup: Montreal AI, Chainvu, BIOS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With six investments into Montreal-based AI companies alone, this week\u00a0was a successful one in the Canadian startup scene. Here\u00a0are some of the top funding stories you may have missed this week.<\/p>\n<p><b>Montreal AI<\/b><\/p>\n<p>This week, the Government of Canada invested in six Montreal-based AI companies, totalling nearly CAD $6.3 million (USD $4.7 million) in funding coming form the\u00a0Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED).<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/borndigital.com\/2018\/08\/22\/plan-for-friction-element-ai-and-the-pursuit-of-ethics\" target=\"_blank\">Element AI<\/a><\/strong>,<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0a provider of software to help companies improve their processes to become more secure and more agile, received $5 million of the investment in the form of a repayable\u00a0contribution.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis investment from the Quebec Economic Development Program demonstrates yet again Canada\u2019s commendable leadership in AI, which has permitted Canadian companies like Element AI to shine,\u201d said Anne Martel, co-founder of Element AI. \u201cThis investment will help accelerate the company\u2019s global expansion, create jobs, and expand our innovation infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The remaining $1.3 million will go towards supporting the innovations of five other AI companies, Imagia, Keatext Inc., ARA Robotics Inc., C2RO Cloud Robotics Inc., and Roof Ai.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imagia.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Imagia<\/a>:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cWe are fortunate to be moving into the AI city of Montr\u00e9al. This will continue to foster our relationships with AI institutes, such as Mila and IVADO, and strengthen a healthcare AI ecosystem that includes other key institutes like VEctor &amp; AMII,\u201d said Shelley Epstein,\u00a0VP of corporate and public affairs at Imagia. \u201cThe support provided <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">will accelerate innovative discoveries for pharmaceutical, medical devices and diagnostic companies to make personalized medicine accessible for all patients.&#8221;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.keatext.ai\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\">Keatext<\/a>:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cBuilding a business is an ongoing challenge. It\u2019s a journey that starts with finding the solution to a problem in the market and then coming up with ways of exposing that solution to clients,\u201d said Narj\u00e8s Boufaden, president and CEO of Keatext. \u201cAlong the way, it involves obtaining all the help you can in order to get there. Organizations like CED are valuable resources that make that journey shorter.\u201d<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ara-uas.com\/?fbclid=IwAR2o8JZ_C0I1CQHLSkXh-Dl4qpPpRdqeYLo6PUZz52xZZXbZbzp6BotwJMU\" target=\"_blank\">ARA Robotics<\/a><\/strong>:\u00a0<\/span>\u201cCED\u2019s support is enabling us to go ahead with our marketing projects in Canada and the United States. With CED\u2019s assistance, we were able to support our growth and position ourselves in new markets outside Quebec,\u201d said Pascal Chiva-Bernard, president and CEO of ARA Robotics.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/c2ro.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">C2RO Cloud Robotics<\/a>:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cC2RO\u2019s growth strategy is ambitious: we are commercializing our real-time machine intelligence solution globally to enhance the quality of everyday experiences with artificial intelligence,\u201d said Riccardo Badalone, CEO of C2RO Cloud Robotics. \u201cCED\u2019s financial assistance will help boost our ability to penetrate global markets and extend the reach of C2RO\u2019s game-changing Engage platform.\u201d<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/roof.ai\/\" target=\"_blank\">Roof Ai<\/a>:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cThe Quebec Economic Development Program helped us penetrate the U.S. market faster and fuel our growth. Using the funding provided by the program, we were able to secure some of the biggest real estate companies in the United States,\u201d said Pierre Sabbagh, president of Roof Ai.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Chainvu<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Toronto technology startup, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/chainvu.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Chainvu<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, has closed a CAD $2.6 million (USD $2 million) seed funding round led by Leonite Capital. Chainvu is a cloud-based logistics platform, providing companies with location monitoring and quality product shipment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs global logistics rapidly evolves with automated vehicles, artificial intelligence and blockchain, Chainvu provides essential capabilities in harnessing the power of those technologies for immediate benefits and return on investment,\u201d said Bob Burrows, Founder and CEO of Chainvu. \u201cWe have the technology and early services in hand, as well as customer engagement. With Leonite\u2019s investment, we are expanding our hiring, product development and sales efforts and accelerating our market penetration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><b>BIOS<\/b><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bios.health\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">BIOS<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a Cambridge, U.K. neural engineering company raised CAD $6 million (USD $4.5 million) in seed funding led by Real Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, and Ariel Poler. The company is opening a new research and development office in Montreal, which will be its first outside of the UK. The research and development that BIOS has done led to the creation of a Prosthetic Interface Device (PID) that enables prostheses to connect directly to the nervous system of an amputee.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With six investments into Montreal-based AI companies alone, this week\u00a0was a successful one in the Canadian startup scene. Here\u00a0are some of the top funding stories you may have missed this week. Montreal AI This week, the Government of Canada invested in six Montreal-based AI companies, totalling nearly CAD $6.3 million (USD $4.7 million) in funding [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76295,"featured_media":107438,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[154,3300,3304,3301,3303,1120,3298,3299,30,3302],"magazine-region":[],"magazine-series":[],"magazine-topic":[],"class_list":["post-107906","magazine","type-magazine","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-News","tag-ai","tag-ara-robotics","tag-bios","tag-c2ro-cloud-technologies","tag-chainvu","tag-element-ai","tag-imagia","tag-keatext","tag-montreal","tag-roofai"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/107906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/magazine"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/76295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/107906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/107438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107906"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-region?post=107906"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-series?post=107906"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-topic?post=107906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}