Blog - Page 6 of 11 - Concrete Ventures

Blog

Investment News

It’s time for our quarterly portfolio updates!

We’re proud to announce our newest portfolio member, trophi.ai! trophi.ai joined us in December 2021 and is building the future of AI-enhanced coaching. They offer athletes the ability to up their game by leveraging the latest in AI technology. For the first time, the benefits of professional coaching will be accessible to everyone with an internet connection. 

Our portfolio company Securicy changed their name to Carbide and announced an additional $4.1M seed funding. The additional funding finishes off a successful year with 300% customer growth and a doubling in team size. Carbide currently has over a dozen job openings available.

Back in November, our portfolio company Rally received a $500,000 investment through ACOA’s Regional Economic Growth through Innovation (REGI). With this funding, Rally will create seven highly skilled jobs and support the development of their software through various marketing activities.

Event & Award News

During the Renewable Natural Gas Conference in December, Anessa presented a panel about Evaluating RNG as an Investment

In November, Talkatoo was one of 8 finalists to present at the Annual SAAS NORTH PitchFest in Ottawa.

At the end of October, Rally graduated from the Genesis Centre’s incubator program.

October was a great month for our portfolio company TrojAI, as well. They won the “Most-Promising Start-up” award during the 5th Annual ACADA Industry Excellence Awards. TrojAI was one of four Atlantic Canadian companies to be celebrated for their success and excellence in the aerospace, defense and security industries. 

In addition, TrojAI was recognized by Gartner as a Representative Vendor for Adversarial Assistance. They were also among the Top 5 Startups to compete at the 2021 Startup Global Pitch Competition. 

More exciting news in October came from Anessa, who made the list of finalists for the 2021 Fredericton Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Awards.

3D Planeta was among 12 top-performing companies across Atlantic Canada to present at the 2021 Technology Showcase at the Atlantic Venture Forum.

Moreover, TrojAI, Anessa and 3D Planeta were among 6 Atlantic Canadian companies to present at the CIX Atlantic Canada Tech Showcase.

Atlantic Canada’s tech ecosystem had a huge year.  From my tally, companies in the region raised over $350m in venture capital financing and hired a net new 2,483 employees in 2021.

Last quarter was a slow one for job growth, seeing only 255 net new jobs.  However, this shouldn’t be viewed as an indication of a slowdown, because this same group of companies were injected with $116.1m in capital in Q4 2021.

Of the companies that I’m tracking 22% hired employees, 57% had no change and 21% had less staff last quarter.  Throughout 2021, 33% hired employees, 28% were stagnant, and 28% had less staff than the year before.  

Those companies hiring in 2021 made lots of new hires.  The top 15 companies (see below) hired a total of 668 new individuals, representing 27% of the total net new job creation in 2021.

There was some big news out of the region in Q4 2021:

We release job creation data each quarter for Atlantic Canada. If you’d like to receive future job data from the industry, please subscribe to our newsletter, by clicking here.

Top Tech Atlantic Canadian Employers in 2021

Sorted by net new jobs created

Today, we are incredibly excited to announce our investment in Newfoundland-based Trophi.ai, alongside several angel investors. 

In traditional sports, we have distilled performance into a science. Everything from player evaluation to team composition can be broken down into both quantitative and qualitative data. 

With professional sports being one of the most competitive career choices one can make, how does one get an edge? How does one rise to the ranks of the world’s best? 

The answer to that question has long been coaching, which still rings true. The skills gap between athletes with a coach and those without will only get larger as we continue to push the boundaries of sport and performance.

However, there remains the problem that coaching is often too expensive and out of reach for millions of athletes. As the Trophi.ai team puts it: “Right now, somewhere in the world, there is someone who has extraordinary talent. Talent that will likely go undiscovered because, for all the natural ability they have, they lack one core component of greatness. They cannot access world-class coaching.”

The Rise of eSports

The rise of eSports has offered many athletes the opportunity to go pro in this new category of professional sport. As we have seen before, this career opportunity is becoming a top choice for many aspiring athletes. How can we ensure that everyone has the opportunity to improve their skills and rise up as eSports gains momentum? 

Trophi.ai is building the future of AI-enhanced coaching. They offer athletes the ability to up their game by leveraging the latest in AI technology. For the first time, the benefits of professional coaching will be accessible to everyone with an internet connection. In a world where competition has never been more intense for professional sports, the timing couldn’t be better.  

The team intends to leverage their experience to help democratize performance. They have run the biggest racing school in the UK and worked with racing teams such as Ferrari, Renault Sport, and Porsche.

They believe that the next generation of Formula 1 champions will be trained by AI. This is therefore their first stepping stone into eSports. If that excites you, then visit our jobs page to see their open positions and join their team. 

Welcome to the portfolio Trophi.ai!