The Hottest Tech Companies of Canada’s For The Year 2021

CIOTIMES w w w. t h e c i o t i m e s . c o m

The 2021 Hottest Tech Companies in Canada

Dan McCall CEO, Influitive

editorial Hottest Tech Companies In Canada 2021

T

echnology has always made human life easy. However, the pandemic rendered technology an indispensable part of human existence and there seems to be no end to its growth. In such times, when our dependence on technology is only going to increase with time, a few companies are leveraging the power of technology to provide much-needed solutions to people and help them sustain themselves. While we live in a world where numerous crimes are conducted over the internet and technology is misused, these enterprises in Canada are serving as torchbearers in the cosmos of the modern world.

In our humble attempt to highlight some of the hottest tech companies in Canada, we bring to you our latest edition.

On the cover, we are featuring Influitive, an organisation that has acknowledged the importance of creating a digital presence in the market, and aspires to serve as the foundation of its customer’s digital marketing and business experiences as they attempt to increase engagement and achieve better sales.

On the inside of the magazine, we are featuring companies like Flybits. This organisation empowers banks to engage an audience of one, at scale. Through their leading customer experience platform, one can deliver data-driven, personalized recommendations and advice, inside your mobile app or website.

Achievers is an HR innovation enterprise that works towards creating conditions for a sustainable work environment, which will lead to increased productivity and sales. Wattpad is a global community of readers and writers. It provides writers with an opportunity to showcase their talent to the world.

Think Research is a pioneer in providing modern-day healthcare solutions and knowledge, to prevent the interests of the patients and help them choose their required medical facility wisely. They offer a diverse portfolio of services to their customers.

Flip through the pages of this magazine to indulge yourself in a corporate read about some amazing companies in Canada.

CIOTIMES w w w. t h e c i o t i m e s . c o m

EDITOR IN CHIEF Carla Houston

CONTENT Senior Editor : Anushri Sethia Executive Editors : Diana Tan

DESIGN Visualizer : Jeffry Tyler Art & design Director : Justin Brown Associate Designer : Rachel M.

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HEAD OF OPERATION Kim Williams

TECHNICAL Technical Analyst : Saurabh D. SEO Executive : Larissa L.

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Flybits

Achievers

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Think Research

Wattpad

Influitive

Inception And Outset Story Of The Organization Since 2010, In luitive has pioneered advocate marketing and built an easy-to-use SaaS platform that enables companies to engage their customers to promote their brand, adopt new product features, and become loyal advocates. In luitive accomplishes this by creating a destination for the customers' advocates, which includes personalized journeys with advanced targeting, game mechanics, and rewards. Since the inception of the organization, In luitive has collectively recorded more than 100 million acts of advocacy and powered more than $1 billion in ROI value for its customers.

Dan McCall CEO, Influitive

Led by CEO Dan McCall, In luitive is headquartered in Toronto, Canada with employees across North America and Europe. Global brands such as Adobe, Cisco, IBM, Mountain Dew, and SoFi rely on In luitive to help foster collaboration, build trust and deepen relationships with customers for top-line growth and bottom-line pro its.

Aims, Visions And Ideals Of The Organization In luitive's vision is to set the standard for creating engaging digital journeys that drive a positive change.

In luitive's software is the foundation for its customers' digital experiences to increase engagement, improve relationships, create better outcomes and provide actionable insights.

In luitive has three core values: 1. Customer First: Everything said and done is in the eyes of the customer and their best interests. Customer issues and concerns are the top priorities, and their success is the responsibility of every In luitive employee.

2. Win as a Team: The greatest results are best achieved through teamwork and diversity of thought. Assume positive intent, insist on the highest standards, and support collective growth.

3. Take Ownership: Be held accountable every day to focus and deliver on what's most important and needed for forwarding progress and resolution. Act as leaders and agents of change.

Portfolio Of Services Offered In luitive's lagship product is its customer advocacy, community and engagement platform. An industry leader, the In luitive platform gives businesses a better way to mobilize customer advocates by combining powerful tools and expert services and leveraging the authentic voice of its customers to drive growth.

engagement. The platform's four unique and core features are: 1. Targeting: In luitive's powerful segmentation engine lets you target content and activities based on all kinds of criteria. The platform allows you to build guided customer journeys for groupings like geography, business function, management level, product usage, NPS score, and much more.

In luitive's core platform comes in two packages: Customer Advocacy and Digital Community. The customer advocacy package is ideal for mobilizing customers to drive social proof and gather vital feedback to ef iciently grow, while Digital Community helps businesses mobilize and engage all customers in a community throughout their lifecycle to enhance their lifetime value and experiences.

In luitive also offers Virtual EventHub™, a fast and easy way to create a live digital event for unlimited attendees.

This all-in-one virtual event platform contains the same features and functionality as In luitive's core platform, and customers with existing In luitive communities can either extend their existing hub to support a virtual event or create a separate event-speci ic hub that seamlessly connects to their community hub.

In luitive practice leaders and consultants offer a wide variety of services to help customers plan, design, implement and maintain their customer community.

Packaged and a la carte services include program strategy, discussion, moderation, content development, graphic design, data analytics, project management, and administrator training.

Contributions To The Technological Sector Of The Economy At its inception, In luitive pioneered advocate marketing and has been a long-time leader in customer advocacy software. In recent years, In luitive has become a leader in online community management and a major player in customer engagement.

Every part of In luitive's platform is targetable—including all the zero-party data it captures through member activities and feedback. This enables brands to create personalized experiences and unique journeys at scale that generate extreme customer and channel partner

2. Personalization: Its scalable platform lets you personalize every aspect of what members see and do in your In luitive-powered hub, providing a ful illing experience based on each individual's needs, interests and behaviors. Plus, their team of experts is always reachable to lend a hand.

3. Gami ication: In luitive's platform features best-inclass gami ication that uses friendly competition, points, and badges to create authentic and effective customer engagement. It's a sure- ire way to drive interaction, collaboration, awareness and learning.

4. Rewards: Rewards go beyond catalogs and swag.

They go deep into your brand and what you stand for.

They help you bring together what your customer's value and are motivated by leveraging proven methodologies from both B2C and B2B rewards/loyalty programs.

Effect Of The Pandemic And The Changes In The Market The pandemic signi icantly impacted the tech market in

Canada, where organizations industry-wide needed to consider cutting software from their martech stack.

Amongst their customer base of customer advocacy and marketing managers, In luitive saw four consistent trends: 1. A signi icant re-prioritization on long-term customer engagement 2. Increased focus on educational resources and nurturing customers 3. A need to give customers a break with a bit of fun content like trivia, pop culture quizzes and recipes to try 4. Increased interest from multiple business units and c-suite executives At their 2020 B2B Summit, Forrester said that “customer-obsessed companies will prioritize customer engagement over net new acquisition to

survive the COVID-19-induced downturn and that tech investment will follow to scale those early CX successes.” In luitive worked closely with its customers and prospective customers who needed a way to engage virtually with their customers and employees.

Further, many In luitive customers experienced hardship with the cancellation of in-person events and conferences. With experience in event services and the right technology, In luitive offered clients its Virtual EventHub platform for free along with strategy sessions to help them get up and running quickly.

The Company's Views On The Post-pandemic Market The industry trend is clear and indisputable: Customer's want omni-channel, personalized experiences from their vendors and business partners.

Customers expect every interaction to be guided by “what came before” and there are enough companies that have successfully made this digital transformation that disconnected experiences have become an enrager.

The post-pandemic market has not only accelerated this trend, but it has also rebalanced marketing's focus and budget on attracting new customers and mobilizing customers into advocates. The future will have customer engagement as a core business strategy that encompasses the entire lifecycle journey: from prospect to customer to loyalist and then inally to advocate.

From onboarding to advocacy and everything in between, In luitive allows customer-obsessed companies to serve up personalized experiences, supercharge activities across multiple channels and use cases, allow for branded sub-communities, and deliver next-generation gami ication to audiences wherever they are online.

As the worlds of customer advocacy, loyalty, community and engagement collide, In luitive is in a unique position to bring those worlds together and support the customer marketing, customer success, and customer experience departments who are working together to make it happen.

Advice To Budding Entrepreneurs In The Technological Sector No matter what technology you are trying to bring to market, it matters not what you think, but how you make others think of you. Listen intently to and engage frequently with your customers—whether they are detractors or promoters—and take action to address their concerns or desires. In doing so, your customers will turn into loyal advocates and become your best (and most cost-effective) marketing and sales weapon to attract new customers and ignite growth.

Dr. Hossein Rahnama Founder & CEO Flybits Inc

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lybits was born in a university research lab in 2008, by Professor Hossein Rahnama. He recognized that humans make decisions using different inputs and sources of information. It was a time when people were being bombarded with information while devices were getting smaller. An opportunity existed, to apply context to data and deliver relevant recommendations. It's only with context that our physical and digital worlds can seamlessly connect, to bring experiences that are more impactful than we've ever seen before.

What are your aims, visions and ideals?

At Flybits, we believe that bad data sells and better data serves.

We recently launched an open letter to Canada's top national newspaper, the Globe and Mail. In it, we discuss the true promise of the Data Age. When data is protected, organized, secured, and delivered through the right channels, its power can work for us: relieving stress, fostering connections, and improving lives. We feel there is a huge opportunity for trustworthy, accountable inancial institutions to be the standard-bearers of better data use. View our open letter here: https://www. lybits.com/resources/blog/open-letter/ The data economy requires a new paradigm where data is treated as an asset class. And there is a major opportunity (and need) for banks to bring trust into the mix, and reimagine their business models. Please view our video: Flybits for better data https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHQDhf0ttYQ Tell us about the services you offer to your customers?

Flybits empowers banks to engage an audience of one, at scale.

Through our leading customer experience platform, banks can incorporate a human touch on their digital channels, and service customers through a dynamic feed of data-driven insights, personalized recommendations, and advice. While banks leverage our live-feed, we also prepackage all the relevant points of interaction -- that help customers buy a home, save, manage debt, or onboard to a new product. Marketers activate these turnkey services to both help customers and drive real results. We enable the world's top inancial institutions to advance beyond transactions and be with their customers in the moments that matter.

Mention some of your contributions to the technological sector of the economy.

Flybits has built their product with inancial institutions in mind.

Ensuring that the solution we offer can address the problems in

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which they face. Namely, Flybits is an end-to-end and a fast time-tomarket solution that was built with privacy and scalability in mind.

What's more, we bring inancial institutions the power of context to address the demand of highly personalized, “always on” customer experiences. Flybits holds a patent portfolio with 11 patent ilings under 3 families, combining the strength of semantic computing with data ntelligence, machine learning and software engineering design patterns. And with a focus on customer centricity and intuitiveness, Flybits customers have a signi icant competitive advantage as they transform their digital channels with predictive, contextual intelligence.

Flybits has successfully helped FIs deliver hyper-personalized and predictive customer experiences to achieve business objectives. For example, a major bank in North America that leverages Flybits' technology saw a 43% increase in user engagement in their mobile channel after implementing Flybits. Another major bank in Latin America achieved a 164% increase in offer redemption after ersonalizing customer experiences using Flybits.

Ÿ Enlighten us about the notable recognitions and accreditations you have received as a company.

Flybits successes continue to be recognized at home and abroad. Ÿ The Globe and Mail named us amongst the Top 100 Growing Companies in Canada for our exceptional growth over the last three years. Ÿ Barclays has recognized us as a Highly Commended company. The criteria for this honor is based on a combination of disruption, impact, scale, and diversity of a product. Ÿ The University Waterloo awarded our HR team with their Generation Award, which highlights the continuous focus and impact we have made in developing the next generation of talent. Ÿ The Great Place to Work Certi ication, a direct result of our employees and their pride in working for Flybits.

In 2019 alone, were also recognized by: Ÿ Deloitte - as one of Canada's fastest-growing technology companies as a 2019 Technology Fast 50™ award winner by Deloitte.

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Frost & Sullivan awarded Flybits for best practices in Technology Innovation in global customer experience technology for the inancial services market. Ÿ Recognized in The Fintech Power 50, an annual guide to the most in luential, innovative, and powerful igures in the Fintech industry.

Ÿ LinkedIn included Flybits on its 2019 Top Startups list in Canada, recognizing the organization as one of the hottest high-growth global companies to work for in the country. Ÿ CIX, Canada's largest curated startup investment conference, named Flybits to its annual list of Top 10 Growth companies — a list that recognizes innovative, mature startups with high potential to scale.

How has the pandemic affected the tech market in Canada? Is your company changing with the market?

The pandemic brought with it a great amount of uncertainty. Flybits, along with our customer base, was impacted dramatically, not only from a revenue growth standpoint but also on an organizational level where we had to quickly mobilize our entire employee-base to a new working environment, while working closely with our customers who faced signi icant challenges.

When the pandemic hit, most banks around the world entered a crisis mode of accelerating and building digital capabilities to catch up to where they should have been. Inspired to be a catalyst for change and empowered by our entrepreneurial spirit, we have collectively emerged stronger from what was a very dif icult year. We have been able to advance our product with a framework that makes it easy for our customers to integrate data, we built template experiences for our customers to go-tomarket faster, and created audience optimization - an intelligence layer that helps banks better target their customers.

Modern technology has changed human thinking and its existence.

With the rapid advancement towards globalization, what do you think the post-pandemic market will look like for tech companies?

The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation for many organizations with an emphasis on advancing customer experiences to be more in tune with personal needs and requirements. For tech companies, this will translate to collaborating with external partners to build robust customer ecosystems that can provide relevant and contextualized experiences.

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ACHIEVERS

Jeff Cates CEO & President

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“Creating environments where employees can do the best

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work of their lives

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c h i eve r s i s a m o d e r n - d ay e n te r p r i s e t h a t encompasses HR innovation, powered by workforce data. The organisation supports an individual throughout their journey and delights the employees with an experience that has lasting effects on engagement. They seek to create a holistic work environment of dedicated and empowered individuals who can contribute to the organisation in more than one way. At Achievers, every day is seen as an opportunity to build a great culture and change the way the world works. They are pioneers when it comes to employee recognition and engagement. They give employees a voice through pulse surveys, frequent check-ins, and networks that allow them to learn, grow, and contribute to our communities.

THEIR VISIONS AND VALUES Their values are the means of accomplishing their goals. At achievers, they believe in morals and ethics. They are the compass that guides them to greatness. It’s these values that drive their passion and uncompromising dedication to treating every customer, every Achievers employee — even

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their competitors — with the highest levels of integrity. It de ines who they are as an enterprise and what they value. They are inclusive and accredit the uniqueness that each employee contributes to their culture. They believe that for growth, it is essential that they think big, prioritize, take action, and be accountable for the outcome. They inspire their clients to operate in similar manner. That’s their secret to success!

AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS Their excellence has been recognised all across the globe. They have been accredited with the following;

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Achievers was awarded Bronze in the category of Best Advance in Employee Recognition Program.

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Achievers secured ranking as a top provider based on customer satisfaction surveys in the categories of service breadth, deal sizes, and quality of service.

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Achievers is recognized on the 2021 list of Best Workplaces in Ontario by Great Place to Work Canada

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Achievers Ranked in HRO Today’s Baker’s Dozen 2021 Customer Satisfaction Survey for Recognition

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Achievers Ranked in HRO Today’s Baker’s Dozen 2021 Customer Satisfaction Survey for Recognition

THE WOMEN'S NETWORK With their aim to facilitate and improve the productivity of every employee and the irm as a whole, The Achievers Women’s Network was created to share information, best practices, education, and experience, that will help one another develop leadership skills and career-advancing opportunities needed to drive success.

The Achievers Women’s Network strives to provide a safe space for persons of any group or identity striving for universal equality, inside and outside of the workplace.

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THINK RESEARCH

Sachin Aggarwal CEO

THINK RESEARCH The world is currently faced with the biggest medical crisis. In such trying and tedious times, Think Research is heralding a change in the way we look at medical science. An organisation that commenced its operations with a single clinical evidence-based tool for hospital physicians has now successfully evolved into a healthy and sustainable ecosystem of integrated digital health solutions and services.

They are an initiative directed towards educating people about healthcare so that every family can choose the correct care facility for themselves. Their family of companies span the healthcare continuum and reach more than 300,000 clinical professionals worldwide.

This unique structure allows them to generate value along the entire clinical knowledge lifecycle, from generating new research to knowledge tools and education, to enabling patient clinical services and connectivity.

THE DAWN OF THE ENTERPRISE Think Research’s journey began with Dr Chris O’Connor, a critical care physician in southwestern Ontario. Through his

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practice treating ICU patients at Trillium Health Sciences, he hit upon what irst appeared to be a simple, local challenge: handwritten, unstructured text orders for ICU patients.

A visionary by nature, Chris recognized what others didn’t. He acknowledged the fundamental challenge facing clinicians: free-text ordering was time-consuming and error-prone. Inspired by checklists used by pilots in the airline industry, he realized that evolving ordering processes into digital checklists would improve ef iciency, adoption of best practices, care quality, and patient outcomes. Order Sets were a resounding success and Chris’ vision of a cloud-based collaborative platform for clinicians led him to found Think Research in 2006.

Today, with a growing network of clients, collaborators, and partners, this collaborative principle continues to drive our product development. They are continually building new solutions to transform healthcare, one patient at a time.

THEIR VISION AND MISSION They’re organizing the world’s health knowledge so that everyone gets the best care.

Their knowledge-based tools empower healthcare providers at the point of care and beyond. They are currently working across all sectors, including acute, primary, and long-term care.

They make use of contemporary technology to come up with solutions to support the clinical decision-making process, standardize care, and improve patient outcomes. Their products and services are available in over 2,800 facilities across Canada, the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, and the Middle East, with millions of patients impacted every year.

VIRTUAL CARE IN RESPONSE TO THE GLOBAL PANDEMIC Patients unable to visit their primary care provider due to scheduling, travel, and other barriers too often delay or choose not to seek care for non-critical issues.

For clinicians, relying exclusively on in-of ice appointments means valuable time is lost to minor tasks like sharing prescriptions or results that could be done virtually without sacri icing care quality.

Virtual Care supports the delivery of patient-centred healthcare, whether for outpatient treatment or for seniors’ care homes residents who cannot attend a clinic or hospital. Our platform fully integrates with the two most-used EHR systems and has seen a tenfold increase in visit volume during COVID-19.

Their patient engagement platform allows health care providers, specialists, allied health and community support workers, and others to provide virtual care through text messaging, audio-video conferencing, and secure document sharing.

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“The most loved storytelling platform across the globe” Wattpad provides readers with a platform to discover epic stories, novels and scripts by new, unrecognised, untapped, unsigned, and talented writers and connects them to the global community of readers and learners.

Wattpad is currently home to over 90 million readers and writers that connect through the power of story and share emotions and affections through characters, dialogues, sentences and words. The Wattpad houses a myriad of genres from mysteries to LGBTQ+ meet-cutes, technothrillers to cyberpunk fairytales, they have it all covered!

They empower diverse voices and stories all over the world, helping you build a communityof readers on a worldwide platform. Once you like a particular genre, they start recommending other stories based on your taste, thus exposing the reader to a variety of different stories. They champion untold stories to the publishing & amp; entertainment industries.

THE WATTY AWARDS The Watty Awards are Wattpad’s annual celebration of the electrifying, visionary, diverse voices that choose to share their stories on Wattpad every year. For over a decade, The Watty Awards have celebrated the journey millions of Wattpad writers undertake to bring their stories from their dreams and into the lives of readers around the world. From the irst seed of a story to the

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moment you type the inal period on the last sentence of our inal chapter—this is all part of that same journey. That’s why this award show is distinct and unique and so much more than an award.

WATTPAD STUDIOS Wattpad Studios partners with the entertainment industry to co-produce Wattpad stories for TV, ilm, digital video, and print. Wattpad is home to voices and content that can’t be found anywhere else. We deal exclusively in the one thing that powers the entire entertainment industry - original stories that captivate audiences around the world.

Wattpad Studios is radically transforming the way the entertainment industry sources and produces content. They have a brilliant and immensely talented community of storytellers and are backed by honest data and real-time insights.

They deal exclusively in the fuel that powers the entire entertainment industry: original stories that captivate audiences. Wattpad works with media executives to single out stories that have a great chance at commercial success from the roughly 400 million uploads shared on the platform.

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