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News round-up: Nine business and investment stories from April 2019

A round-up of news stories from Waterloo, Canada in April 2019, including major government funding announcements, new investment from Toyota and more.

There was a lot of exciting news in Waterloo over the last month, including multiple major government funding announcements, significant news about Toyota’s manufacturing plans and reporting on a US tech exodus to Canada.

Here are nine great business and investment stories:

1. New support for high-growth tech firms

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to Waterloo to announce $52.4 million in government funding for a new “Scale-up Platform” for tech companies. Of this total, about $18 million will run through Waterloo-based scaling support organizations like Communitech, Velocity, the Accelerator Centre and Wilfrid Laurier University’s Launchpad. Read the full story from the Waterloo Region Record.

2. Toyota makes “significant production announcement” in Waterloo

Following a $1.4 billion investment less than one year ago, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada announced that its Waterloo-area facilities will add two new vehicles to their production lines – the Lexus NX and Lexus NX Hybrid. We wrote about this story here.

3. Continuing to earn the “Quantum Valley” moniker

Four Waterloo quantum technology and artificial intelligence companies received substantial investments from the federal government’s Strategic innovation Fund. This funding further strengthens Waterloo’s leading position in the world of quantum computing and machine learning. We wrote about this here.

4. Even more “Quantum Valley” validation

The IBM Q Network is a community of Fortune 500 companies, startups, academic institutions and research labs working to advance and explore practical applications for quantum computing. The University of Waterloo is the only Canadian university participating in the collaboration. Read the full story from BetaKit

5. The fastest growing communities in Canada

A new report from Statistics Canada lists the fastest growing urban areas in Canada. The most surprising findings? First, the top five fastest growing cities and communities are in Ontario. Second, Canada’s biggest cities – Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver – couldn’t crack the top 10. Which communities made the top five? Read our story to find out.

6. US Immigration feeding Canadian tech industry

A recent survey by immigration consulting company Envoy Global said they are sending more employees to Canada after establishing new offices in tech hubs like Waterloo. Why? Changes to the H-1B visa program are part of the reason. We wrote about H-1B visas here and Global News wrote their own story about the tech exodus to Canada.

7. Deep tech in Waterloo gets deeper with addition of PerkinElmer

PerkinElmer, the global life science company, has relocated its Canadian demonstration lab to the Velocity Garage. This move will give startups, entrepreneurs and scientists in the incubator early access to PerkinElmer’s life science lab instruments, software and experts. Read the whole story from BetaKit.

8. Global outlook, local growth for Waterloo company

A local startup is helping attract some of the world’s best minds to Canada, and it turns out it’s good for business. ApplyBoard celebrated the grand opening of a new headquarters in April to accommodate their rapidly growing team. In one year they’ve added 100 new team members, with 45-50 roles to fill. Read the full story from Communitech News.

9. Waterloo science helps power Earth-sized telescope

After more than a decade of preparation, the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration revealed humanity’s first image of a supermassive black hole using a telescope the size of Earth. Researchers at the University of Waterloo and Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics had a lead role in this achievement. Read the whole story from The Globe and Mail.

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