April 10, 2023: What it takes to build a strong tech ecosystem

What is Shakudo?

Shakudo is an operating system for the data stack. Our mission is to enable companies to build the best data infrastructure for their needs.

With Shakudo, data teams can mix and match their data tools to create a more reliable, performant, and cost-effective stack. This allows our customers to focus their time and resources on building data products, rather than on data stack maintenance.

What was the insight/inspiration that led you to launch it?

With extensive experience in the AI space, we have noticed that data science teams often have great ideas that never make it into production due to a lack of DevOps engineering resources available to support their activities. We conducted additional market research and identified that this is a widespread problem across a broad range of companies and industries.

How has it been received by the market? Why do you think it has been so well received?

The market response has exceeded our expectations thus far! Typically, our customers begin using the Shakudo platform to successfully solve a specific and complex use case, but then quickly expand their usage as the platform offers a significant amount of flexibility. Furthermore, it drives tangible and substantial cost reductions, which is especially critical at this time as companies seek to continuously evolve their data stack in a resource-constrained environment.

How did you know you were ready to found a company?

We recognized a genuine need for our product and wanted to help other companies in managing the complexities of modern data stacks. Additionally, we had confidence in our co-founding team and were ready to take this leap of faith together!

How did you meet your founders/know they were the right people to start a company with?

We have previously worked together on AI teams in a couple of companies within the Canadian financial sector. We knew that this was the right group of people to start a company with because we brought forward different ideas but shared a common vision for the product and a drive to build it. We also had a lot of trust in each other as we worked very closely together for years prior to launching Shakudo and navigated some challenging situations as a team.

This gave us the confidence that we could start a company!

Co-Founders (left to right): Yevgeniy Vahlis, Christine Yuen, Stella Wu

What has been the hardest thing on your journey so far?

Since we started Shakudo, we've faced and overcome many challenges.

One of the most significant has been finding and hiring the right people to join our team. As we continue to scale and grow the business, this will remain a top priority.

Fortunately, we’ve been able to bring in some incredible talent to the team. We're also lucky to have an amazing group of advisers whom we've relied on for guidance throughout our journey.

What has been the most pleasant surprise?

One of the most pleasant surprises has been the positive reception our product has received from customers.

Our customers typically sign up for Shakudo with a specific use case, and sometimes a data stack in mind. As they utilize the platform, they expand their use cases, achieving tangible benefits and optimizing their costs. They also consistently provide ideas for new features and functions, which we incorporate into our product roadmap. This has enabled us to form true partnerships with our customers!

What is your super strength?

Our super strength is our commitment and ability to get things done.

Whether it's a small but critical administrative task or a large and complex product enhancement, our co-founding team is eager to jump into any challenge and resolve it.

What are you trying to achieve over the next 12 months?

The foundation for the business is now established. The primary focus for the next 12 months is building out the team.

We aim to recruit more engineers to improve our product and tackle our customers' most difficult data stack challenges. We also plan to expand our sales team to grow the business and establish an operations function to scale it.

Who are the 5 Canadian startups you like in your market?

It’s an extremely exciting time for the startup ecosystem in Canada! A few specific companies that stand out to us are:

• Noze - disease diagnostics through smell

• riskthinking.AI - enterprise climate risk management platform

• Forma.AI - the first sales compensation program removing the guesswork of motivating sales teams

• Wombo - the world's best ai-powered lip sync app

• Mobius AI - making creative expression universally fun

Learn more about Stella and her journey here

The funding market appears to be rebounding.

In the latter part of Q3 last year, finding funding news was difficult, but as of today, there are over 15 announcements to review, indicating that funding seems to be happening again.

It's important to note that companies are not obligated to announce funding rounds, and the desire to do so depends on industry dynamics.

In early 2020, companies felt compelled to announce funding rounds as it was a great way to build an employer brand in a difficult hiring environment, attract VCs who missed out on a round, and signal to customers that they were the leading company in the market.

As the market cooled, it became easier to hire, and startups had fewer incentives to announce rounds. Additionally, announcing a round may encourage competition, making it better to grow in stealth, and the non-tech media is less likely to cover funding announcements now.

While the market is rebounding, there are still some areas that seem quiet, such as companies three years or older in a competitive/crowded market, tech-enabled businesses like DTC, and enterprise SaaS. However, healthtech, climate, and deep tech are seeing increased funding.

The rebound is likely due to the stabilization of public markets and VCs having more money to deploy. However, valuations are returning to long-term normal, meaning that it will cost founders and teams more equity to build a big business.

*Reply to this email and share your takes on this story and the recent news from across the country

Alex and Alex dove deeper into the latest headlines including more on this story in the most recent episode of Quick Takes:

Quick Takes returns LIVE with a brand new episode tomorrow April 20 at 1:00 pm ET/10:00 am PT across the TechTO platforms.

Catch up on past episodes here, and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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Considerable cultural, economic, and regulatory differences exist around the world that affect accessibility to capital, and in particular the opportunity for women and those underserved to launch and grow thriving businesses.

Uplinq and the SME Finance Forum are hosting a webinar to address financial inclusion for small business lending for women led businesses.

Presenters

Moderator - Elaine MacEachern, Sr. Financial Sector Specialist at World Bank Group

Panelist - Patrick Reily, Co-founder, Uplinq Financial Technologies

Panelist - Mario Schlener, Leader Enterprise Risk Strategy & Global FS Risk Technology/Alliance/Innovation Lead, Ernst & Young

Panelist - Ayo Olojede, Group Head, Emerging Businesses, Access Bank

Panelist - Mehi Mirpourian, Data Science Manager, Women's World Banking

• #ICYMI - Catch up on past newsletters if you hadn't yet subscribed!

• Canadian Startup news of the week >> LEARN MORE

• Raise News: Agnostiq, a Canadian quantum computing startup has raised $6.1m US in seed funding. This was led by Differential Ventures and was joined by Scout Ventures, Tensility Venture Partners and Green Egg Ventures >> READ MORE

• Canada's Crpto Industry consolidates >> READ MORE (Also discussed on our recent episode of Quick Takes >> LISTEN HERE)

• How startups can access an untapped talent pool in Canada >> READ MORE

• What it takes to build a strong tech ecosystem >> LISTEN HERE

Multiple Roles, Plum (Remote)

Why is this cool? Plum, a fully remote company in the talent lifecycle management space just raised $8M of new funding and is hiring for Senior Software Engineers, Software Engineers and an Enterprise Solutions Consultant (Remote)

Backend Engineer, Mobius AI (Toronto, ON)

Why is this cool? Mobius AI is a new generative AI startup looking for dedicated developers to join its engineering team. Their mission is to make creative expression universally accessible, fun, and efficient and help humans become orders of magnitude more creative. As a Backend Engineer, you will help implement systems that can scale to billions of data points with high performance. You will be a key participant in defining the platform roadmap and product strategy which will ultimately transform and expand the creative economy >> APPLY HERE

Customer Success Manager, Unito (Montreal, QC)

Why is this cool? Unito is a software startup that helps work collaboration tools speak to each other. The Customer Success Manager will ensure their customers get the best experience possible using Unito while also getting the most out of their work tools. Unito is accepting early applicants for this role >> SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION HERE

Product Designer, Gadget (Ottawa, ON)

Why is this cool? Gadget is making development fun again. They’re building a best-in-class tool for developers to build, deploy, and scale backend applications wildly fast. They’re looking for someone with lots of experience in UX and interaction design to join their design team >> APPLY HERE

*Reply to this email and let us know the jobs you'd like to see

Check out the interesting content, events, and happenings for the community here:

• *EXCLUSIVE TECHTO INSIDERS SOCIAL: April 13, 2023 >> Learn more about how to attend on our website >> LEARN MORE

• TechTO Together RETURNS TO MONTREAL: April 25, 2023 >> Hear from the top leaders and innovators from the Montreal tech ecosystem. Ticket includes food and a drink! >> REGISTER HERE 

• TechTO Together is back at OneEleven: May 1, 2023 >> The same TechTO networking, programming (and After Parties) you love >> EARLY BIRD TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE

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