Waterloo Tech Highlights for March 2026
Our goal is to provide you with a monthly primer on significant news events from private Waterloo-based technology companies in 5 minutes or less.
Swap Robotics raised new equity from another top 10 solar asset owner and signed a US$10M+ new grass cutting contract with that investment.
SkyWatch’s CTO penned a great article about their adoption of AI and some tips on their new AI front end for accessing their data. It’s funny how the world is going back to a command line UI.
AllMind AI and Innovate-Ops both got admitted to the Google for Startups Accelerator.
Vena Medical had their best month of sales in March.
Intellijoint signed a distribution agreement for their products in Chile.
Nicoya launched FastHDX, the product of an acquisition of a British company last year.
Chris’ Thoughts
A few observations from visiting UWaterloo’s Engineering Capstone projects this month.
1. Coders remain in demand. It feels like everybody in UW Software Engineering who wants a job has one. It seems about 70% of the class is headed for jobs in California or somewhere in the USA, generally making more than double their Canadian wage classmates. I’ve heard entry software jobs are down overall, but it doesn’t look like the case here.
2. Incentives matter. Every year I’m excited to see the Systems Design capstones and every year it’s a great disappointment. Other than this one of course, which was truly amazing (really). If you want to inspire somebody, the Mechatronics projects just amaze with the level of care, pride and inventiveness that they show. These kids do a project worthy of the time they’ve put into their degree, leaving them with a lifework milestone, while the Systems ones leave me thinking, “you’re so much better than this”. I’m sure it’s related to incentives and the way it’s graded, but it’s also probably part of the program’s culture. The Software Engineering projects looked great and those kids all have high-paying jobs locked up.
3. Hardware suddenly looks exciting. I’m late to wake up to this, but if/as AI disappears software moats and data becomes increasingly synthetic that leaves real questions on where the next great companies will come from. Hardware solutions suddenly look interesting as a path to long term value creation. There were a few projects that I saw that combined hardware and software in new and compelling ways. Some cool projects include this, this, this and this one.
4. The Biomedical Engineers easily win the prize for the best communication skills. They explain complex things in half the time most others and have an ability to make me informed without feeling stupid. I’m not sure if that’s trained or something they screen for at admission, but it’s really impressive.
5. Entrepreneurial hopes exist. In a tougher job market, I didn’t find as many aspiring founders as I thought, but I also encountered more optimism for the future than I expected. This class lost their Grade 12 and most of their first year to Covid and have been through the entire AI wave and many have endured too many remote coop jobs. I don’t think they realize the resilience and skills they possess as a group and how these knocks have prepared them for life post-graduation. I expect as a group, they’ll do well.
Waterloo Tech Highlights is a communication initiative run by a group of experienced investors and strategists who would like to receive and share real news about the vibrant Waterloo, Ontario tech community.
If you would like to share news with us, or our readers, email info@ironhorseangels.com. If you are interested in continuing to receive Waterloo Tech Highlights, you can subscribe here:
Chris Wormald @cwormald