This Is What the Long Game Looks Like

Ben Sanders first stood on our stage in 2019 and talked about failure. How to sit with it. How to learn from it. How to go again.

Since then he's done exactly that.

He co-founded Proof in 2016, a platform built to get governments off paper. Proof demoed live on our Best Of stage in 2020. It cut approval timelines from 21 days to 7. Daylight Automation acquired the company in December 2021.

Most founders would stop there. Ben didn't.

In 2023 he co-founded Hyper with Damian McCabe out of the Yukon to tackle 911. More than half of emergency calls aren't emergencies, but they still clog the lines. Dispatchers burn out on noise complaints while urgent calls wait. Hyper built AI that handles non-emergency calls end-to-end, in more than 30 languages, so human operators can stay on the calls that can't wait.

Hyper emerged from stealth with a $6.3M USD round. First live call was December 2024. Less than 18 months later, the company was supporting major public safety agencies across North America. On April 9, Motorola Solutions acquired it. Ben said they weren't trying to sell. It was the fastest way to get the technology to more people.

Two companies. Two exits. One founder who's been in the room with us since 2019.

That's the long game.

Read the Motorola announcement

🛒 Commerce Toronto, April 21 → the room Canada's CPG and e-comm operators actually show up to

Commerce Toronto is next Tuesday at Rotman. Doors at 5:30pm. 200+ founders, operators, and brand builders in one room working on the same problems: distribution, product, scale, and what consumer behaviour actually looks like in 2026.

Four founders on stage. Each one has built through a different constraint.

Leila Keshavjee - Happy Pops. Studied Kinesiology at U of T. Graduated knowing more than she wanted to about what goes into processed food. Started experimenting in her family's food manufacturing facility, which meant fewer surprises when it was time to scale. Happy Pops is now in 1,500+ grocery stores across Canada, 40+ flavours, with collabs including Sesame Street and Mattel. Three-time Canadian Choice Best Manufacturer. She walked onto Dragons' Den in 2018, got an offer from Arlene Dickinson, and famously walked away from the deal because the terms weren't right.

Julia Kirouac - nud fud + Wild Ones Organics. Delivered her first product to Whole Foods loading docks herself. In a Smart Car. For years. Trained as a Certified Nutritionist, studied Biochemistry at U of T, then spent thirteen years building nud fud in her own factory with a proprietary process, no co-founders, no staff, no mat leave. In 2024 she launched her second brand, Wild Ones Organics, nationally at Walmart. She now mentors founders through NEXT Canada.

Josh Guttman built an instant trade-in platform for pre-owned household items. ​Ian Slipacoff turned three generations of family butchery into a DTC business before the category existed.

Inside Best Of: The Honest Version of Building

Monday night, Best Of brought some of Canada's most accomplished founders back to the TechTO stage to talk about what it actually took. City Hall felt different that night. Council chambers full of founders, operators, and builders listening to the real story behind the journeys they've read press releases about for years.

Two ideas kept surfacing.

One: the founders who get closest to the problem see the opportunity first. Rebecca Kacaba realized she was building for the wrong user when a single number made the answer obvious. Saam Mashhad (who we featured last week after EvenUp's $150M Series E) and his co-founder spent 8 to 10 hours a day reading medical records before writing a line of code. Different companies, same lesson.

Two: building never feels clean while you're inside it. Liza Akhvledziani Carew called it what it is: a series of crises interrupted by brief moments of success. Anthony Mouchantaf brought the same thinking to fundraising: raise for the milestone, budget with discipline. Eden Ding's story made another point clear. Some of the biggest opportunities are still hiding in markets most people refuse to take seriously.

The night worked because nobody performed. No founder theatre. Just real lessons on product, fundraising, resilience, and conviction from people who have actually done it.

Full talks drop on our YouTube channel by end of week. 🎥 Subscribe so you don’t miss them.

If you want more nights like this, come to Together Toronto on May 4 or join us at any of the events below.

Don’t forget to lock in your year of TechTO! Subscribe to our full events calendar

JOIN 1000+ MEMBERS → Members get free tickets to all Together events, quarterly founder socials, private Slack access, and a vote on podcast guests.

Annual: $249/year | Founding: $1,199 One-time payment, lifetime access