Ask HN: What are some cool or underrated tech companies based in Canada?

bnchrch · 2025-07-08T22:21:32 1752013292

Heres a few:

https://layerzero.network/

https://1password.com/

https://www.wealthsimple.com/

https://floatcard.com

https://www.postgrid.com

https://www.dapperlabs.com

https://www.wattpad.com

https://gusto.com

https://cohere.com

https://clear.co/ https://www.clio.com/

kimos · 2025-07-09T01:36:19 1752024979

Clio is a gem. I know a few great people who Shopify chewed through that ended up there and are happy.

allanmacgregor · 2025-07-09T10:40:30 1752057630

Gusto is not canadian.

loloquwowndueo · 2025-07-08T23:49:47 1752018587

HTTPS://transit.app is amazing for public transport routing. Gives you a lot more information than the stock mapping apps. Some of the things they do are pure black magic.

shrinks99 · 2025-07-09T00:09:53 1752019793

Their 2016 post on how they render their lines is really nice and full of cool images: https://blog.transitapp.com/how-we-built-the-worlds-pretties...

jason-at-spare · 2025-07-08T23:31:07 1752017467

I work at https://spare.com/

We make tools for transit agencies to manage paratransit and microtransit services, mainly for people with disabilities but also for campuses and low-density areas. Managing these types of services is a real, hard problem with billions spent every year.

Our customers include Winnipeg, Oakville, St John, Saskatoon, and Powell River (also Dallas, LA, Austin, more in Japan and Europe), with more coming soon - including driverless vehicles with routing and scheduling powered by us.

We're Vancouver-based, and we're hiring :)

halfdaft · 2025-07-08T23:03:30 1752015810

SideFX, makers of VFX software Houdini https://www.sidefx.com/

And Derivative, makers of video & interactive software Touch Designer https://derivative.ca/

(Both packages have a shared origin I believe)

helsontaveras18 · 2025-07-08T22:16:03 1752012963

I think we’re pretty cool! https://www.trykeep.com

500isbest · 2025-07-08T23:09:37 1752016177

Urbanlogiq: https://urbanlogiq.com/

Saw their big announcement at Web Summit which stood out: https://urbanlogiq.com/global-foundation-model/

D-wave also had a presence at Web Summit and also seem to be doing well: https://www.dwavequantum.com/

iamjs · 2025-07-08T23:40:24 1752018024

We are building some exciting cloud deployment tools at https://defang.io.

We are making it super easy to manage your deployments through the compose.yaml file you probably already have. The idea is to have a single definition of your application, that you can use locally, and project it into any cloud.

We're a small team based in Vancouver. If you're in town, reach out and come visit: jordan.stephens@defang.io

propter_hoc · 2025-07-08T23:36:56 1752017816

https://sabotagestudio.com/ near Quebec City, they made the amazing 2D JRPG Sea of Stars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Stars

Very excellent takeoff of Chrono Trigger or Lufia 2 type SNES games. Truly exceptional.

juliend2 · 2025-07-08T22:31:57 1752013917

https://vention.io :

1. Design some machinery online with their 3d modeling tool

2. Order the parts

3. Assemble your machine and deploy it

rusticrover · 2025-07-11T13:59:21 1752242361

I've been a https://JMP.chat customer for years and love the service. The whole software stack is free, open source, and self-hostable, and the entity behind it is a Canadian worker-owned co-operative.

supportengineer · 2025-07-08T23:07:09 1752016029

Jobber ( https://www.getjobber.com )

mattbettinson · 2025-07-08T23:32:17 1752017537

I make https://voicecast.app/ and I’m based in Toronto :P

I also work at https://www.getjobber.com/ which is based in Edmonton.

toomuchtodo · 2025-07-09T01:26:02 1752024362

Voicecast looks awesome. Are you considering a video version?

Thanks for commenting, would’ve never found your product otherwise.

mattbettinson · 2025-07-09T14:16:08 1752070568

As in sending video messages? That would be intriguing! I’d never considered it.

No problem! Are you a podcaster?

toomuchtodo · 2025-07-09T14:58:16 1752073096

Content creator/artist of sorts, interested in engaging with folks in new ways. Your comment was a bit of an aha moment.

mattbettinson · 2025-07-09T15:07:41 1752073661

Well, I will be definitely building a video feature, it’s a great suggestion. Let me know if you end up using Voicecast, or have any ideas on how to get the word out!

Nickste · 2025-07-08T23:02:16 1752015736

Safety (previously PyUp) - https://getsafety.com - software supply chain security. Offices in Vancouver but team is all over Canada. Raised a large seed round from First Round and others.

jonathonlacher · 2025-07-08T23:57:15 1752019035

https://getmysa.com/ - their bread and butter are line voltage “smart” thermostats.

I have a few in my home, they say they’re based in St. John’s.

evo_9 · 2025-07-08T22:58:32 1752015512

Sparx - they make a great high tech home skate sharpener. Me and just about every serious player I know own one:

https://sparxhockey.com/

burningChrome · 2025-07-08T23:08:54 1752016134

These are insanely popular in the US too. And I can verify that most of the guys I play with own one. They say their kids teams travel with four or five so the kids get their skates tuned before every game.

That product was an absolute game changer.

mitthrowaway2 · 2025-07-08T22:24:06 1752013446

Here are some worthy ones I know of in Vancouver:

AbCellera (biotech)

General Fusion (fusion energy)

Rapidia (metal 3D printing)

Human in Motion Robotics (exoskeletons)

Grin Technologies (ebike components)

Arca climate technologies (atmospheric CO2 removal via mine tailings)

justcallmejm · 2025-07-08T23:11:48 1752016308

https://aloe.inc Check out Aloe - the founding team left the Bay Area to found the company in Vancouver to have better access to top international talent. Here's a peek at what we're building: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6M5wSv6pyU

dchadha · 2025-07-08T23:59:03 1752019143

https://www.magicboard.ai -

We are building MagicBoard which is a smart board that helps kids learn and develop structure in a way that’s interactive, age appropriate and fosters independence.

It comes to life through a dedicated device for kids with no passive content and a parent app that has an AI based assistant for the parent.

neilcawse · 2025-07-10T00:04:48 1752105888

https://www.geotab.com

xvaier · 2025-07-08T23:04:12 1752015852

https://flare.io is a cybersecurity platform based in Montréal.

norrsson · 2025-07-09T01:52:22 1752025942

https://www.landr.com/ has been around for a while with its automated audio mastering service and it's now a one-stop-shop for everything related to music production. There's also really cool stuff coming up in a few months:)

PeterWhittaker · 2025-07-09T13:39:09 1752068349

Self-serving mention of https://sphyrnasecurity.com/ - we're a bootstrapped cybersecurity company with two main product lines: cross-domain hardware and GRC/IRM software.

vahid4m · 2025-07-09T00:22:32 1752020552

https://www.helcim.com/ and https://www.koho.ca/ come to mind as ell but didn’t see anyone mention them.

dacox · 2025-07-08T23:12:05 1752016325

Plugging ourselves, Lumen5 based out of Vancouver. I was one of the first hires found trough the HN hiring thread many moons ago. https://lumen5.com/

ghssds · 2025-07-09T00:02:26 1752019346

Aylo, based in Montreal, operate some of the most popular social media and online video sharing platforms. It also own many renowned movie studios. Probably among the top five users of internet bandwidth in the world

greenavocado · 2025-07-09T00:05:43 1752019543

Aylo is a Canadian multinational pornographic conglomerate owned by Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners.

Ethical Capital Partners is a Canadian private equity firm best known for its acquisition of Aylo, the owner of Pornhub. The company is chaired by businessman Rocco Meliambro

red-iron-pine · 2025-07-09T18:08:24 1752084504

formerly Manwin

rawgabbit · 2025-07-08T23:46:28 1752018388

I am customer of Coveo enterprise search. https://www.coveo.com/en/company/about-us

henrythe9th · 2025-07-08T23:43:55 1752018235

Ruchi (Sr Dir of Eng at Dropbox) and Ashwin (Employee #1 at Rippling) at https://maplebilling.com/ are top notch!

skrhee · 2025-07-09T23:05:24 1752102324

https://enurgen.com/

They work on modeling solar energy projects, great group.

mosura · 2025-07-08T22:02:19 1752012139

CentML was pretty interesting but just got bought by nvidia.

Tailscale regularly pops up.

mynegation · 2025-07-08T23:40:20 1752018020

Oh wow, congrats to Gena!

sheepybloke · 2025-07-08T22:17:44 1752013064

One of the coolest ones in my opinion is Xiphos Systems. Lots of cool space hardware!

https://xiphos.com/

NalNezumi · 2025-07-09T08:24:11 1752049451

SanctuaryAI https://www.sanctuary.ai/

Making humanoid robots for a while

samsullivan · 2025-07-08T23:53:22 1752018802

Im building https://cardog.app out of Toronto

Trying to make car research, buying and ownership easy

GregDavidson · 2025-07-08T22:16:15 1752012975

My Twiddler comes from Winnipeg -- https://www.mytwiddler.com/

holiveros · 2025-07-09T00:21:51 1752020511

https://shakepay.com/ - Nice easy to use crypto Fintech

nunez · 2025-07-09T01:49:20 1752025760

I interviewed at Wrapbook a few years ago and really liked them. They're worth a look! Based out of Toronto, IIRC.

er0k · 2025-07-08T21:59:49 1752011989

sourcebot https://www.sourcebot.dev/

geophph · 2025-07-08T21:18:04 1752009484

Plotly

https://plotly.com/about-us/

aprdm · 2025-07-09T02:53:50 1752029630

So many great companies, thanks for starting this & people for sharing

holyroller · 2025-07-09T01:01:45 1752022905

I did come to enjoy Arctic Wolf's approach to Cybersecurity training.

scubakid · 2025-07-08T23:34:38 1752017678

check out Lunch Money: https://lunchmoney.app/ - they've grown from a solopreneur story to now a small team

deepspace · 2025-07-09T00:14:31 1752020071

Taiv is a Ycombinator backed company hailing from Winnipeg

holyroller · 2025-07-08T22:52:54 1752015174

One to stay away from is Mattermost

abuani · 2025-07-08T22:56:03 1752015363

Why is that? I feel like every other go security vulnerability was reported by a security researcher there, so I assumed they have a decent engineering culture.

holyroller · 2025-07-08T23:06:55 1752016015

You're right they are one of the largest Go-based applications and get asked to test go releases.

My opinion is they have a poor engineering culture though and worse leadership that is abandoning open-source roots, chasing "mission critical" government/enterprise business.

mrPurplePinkie · 2025-07-09T09:35:37 1752053737

https:\\soti.net

Enterprise Mobile Management

erichocean · 2025-07-09T00:15:12 1752020112

SideFX

feraldidactic · 2025-07-08T22:34:37 1752014077

Opentext

throwaway1x2y3z · 2025-07-08T21:55:59 1752011759

Tigera - K8 security - Vancouver