Buying a new home that matches your tastes and budget can be challenging, expensive and time-consuming. But it doesn’t have to be. That’s where ResVR comes in.

ResVR digitizes homebuilders’ catalogues into virtual layouts and floor plans so that homebuyers can easily see what their house will look like when it’s fully built. Using precise graphics technology detailing everything from the style of railings to the type of oven, a digitized catalogue lets prospective buyers tour homes virtually.

If buyers don’t see what they’re looking for when touring a show home, they typically move on to another builder, explains founder and CEO Nathan Nasseri, who has an extensive background and education in video game design.

Nasseri’s software allows buyers to see multiple house designs in one location and add customization and upgrades during the virtual tour.

“We’re taking the principle of character customization [from video games],” says Nasseri. “You customize the character based on how you want to resonate and engage with the game, except it’s for houses.”

Last year, ResVR raised $1.7 million in seed funding, and Nasseri was one of six winners at the prestigious Inventures 2024 Startup Pitch Competition, taking home $10,000. He has also completed nearly every tech catalyzer in Alberta, including Alberta Catalyzer, 500 Global, Plug and Play, and Creative Destruction Lab – Rockies.

The software officially launches this year in the Microsoft app store. Nasseri plans to expand ResVR to include home-exterior, condominium and whole-neighbourhood customizations.

What’s new: ResVR won the People’s Choice Award at Platform Calgary’s 2024 YYC Launch Party.

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Hong Phuc Nguyen grew up surrounded by female entrepreneurs. “In my hometown in Vietnam, most of the owners, shop runners, even we [who] run the country, run the household, are women,” says Nguyen. So, she didn’t expect the struggle of landing a permanent job when she moved to Canada in 2020 — especially since she was armed with an MBA and international career experience. That spurred her to create a hiring solution to help newcomers and employers, alike.

In 2022, she launched Kibbi, a multilingual job board and app. Kibbi addresses numerous barriers newcomers face, ranging from location to language. There’s a map feature to see job postings near you, automatically generated cover letters tailored to job descriptions, an “invite to apply” feature for employers, AI-generated translations of job descriptions and chats, upskilling resources, and more.

“Our vision is a world where anyone, regardless of background, can effortlessly start contributing to and finding a sense of belonging in their new community from Day 1,” says Nguyen.

In Kibbi’s first nine months, Nguyen raised $875,000 from angel investors and venture capitalists. Additional funding support from organizations such as Alberta Innovates and the National Research Council of Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program brought the total to more than $1.1 million. In 2023, Nguyen received Immigrant Services Calgary’s Immigrants of Distinction Award for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. In 2024, Kibbi expanded to more than 30 universities and colleges through a joint venture with Devant, an on-demand career service portal that helps international students seeking jobs in Canada.

Need to know: Since 2022, more than 48,000 job-seekers and 1,600 small businesses have used Kibbi.

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As we age, our body’s ability to heal weakens. That can lead to a host of issues including chronic health conditions, amputation and even death. Chemical and software engineer Julian Mulia lost both his parents to chronic health conditions, a challenging experience that inspired him to help others. In 2020, Mulia teamed up with his spouse, Megan Leslie, a former management consulting colleague, to launch NanoTess — a values-based social enterprise that creates affordable and accessible catalytic medical innovations.

Mulia explains that treating chronic conditions at home can drastically increase quality of life for people with limited access to hospitals. It also helps minimize the shame associated with these conditions. “It’s a silent pandemic because you’re not going around telling people [about your condition],” says Mulia. “It’s a very personal problem, which, left untreated, can cascade into worse comorbidities.”

NanoTess’s award-winning NanoSALV Catalytic advanced wound-care treatment matrix targets persistent skin wounds that are injured, inflamed or infected. Now used in Alberta’s health system, the salve has helped achieve a 46-per cent reduction in wound-care costs and a 56-per cent increase in healing rate for patients with chronic wounds that had not healed in almost two years. Paramedics with Alberta Health Services’ Mobile Integrated Health division found that, when patients experiencing homelessness were given the salve, their wounds significantly healed within weeks.

“We design products for the 99 per cent, not just the one per cent,” says Leslie. “That means getting them into the hands of people who need them.”

Need to know: NanoSALV Catalytic was used to successfully close a 13-year-old open wound.

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In his early 20s, Tate Hackert, flush from a commercial fishing gig, took it upon himself to offer short-term loans to strangers after seeing some struggle between paycheques. With that, in 2016, fintech company ZayZoon was launched.

ZayZoon is an earned-wage startup, meaning the company partners with small- and medium-sized businesses to help them provide a percentage of earned wage access to employees at any time, outside of traditional pay periods.

While founded by three individuals passionate about accelerating the tech scene in Calgary — CSO Hackert, plus Darcy Tuer, CEO, and Jamie Ha, CFO — ZayZoon was first adopted in the U.S. in 2017 after the trio decided, on a whim, to sponsor a payroll conference in the U.S. There, they met hundreds of individuals and companies interested and eager to adopt ZayZoon’s services.

ZayZoon has maintained a strong presence in the U.S. since, growing to more than 180 employees, raising US$68 million and partnering with or giving its services to more than 10,000 small- and mid-sized businesses across the U.S.

Last year, ZayZoon finally had its homecoming when it expanded to Canada, thanks to a partnership with Scotiabank.

“Since the beginning, it’s always been our plan to be in Canada,” says Hackert. “We know this product is needed here as much as it has been needed in the U.S.”

What’s new: ZayZoon was named Start Alberta’s 2024 Scaleup of the Year, the ScaleUP Company of the Year powered by Growth Compass, one of EY’s 2024 Prairies Award winners and it placed 14th on the Deloitte Canadian Technology Fast 50 list.

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Veterinarians and vet technologists are struggling. In rural or small urban settings, they are almost always on call, even when their clinics are closed. With limited work-from-home options, work-life balance is exceptionally difficult to achieve.

Animal HealthLink’s teletriage service is changing that. The company, co-founded in Calgary by registered vet technologist Leilani Mustillo and veterinarian Sean Neate, provides services to vet practices and their clients in remote and rural locations and urban centres of all sizes. Animal owners can call anytime and speak with experienced veterinary medical professionals for advice. “[Owners] have someone to talk to instead of just Dr. Google to determine if their animal is actually really sick,” says Neate, the company’s chief medical officer. Owners can then confidently decide if their animal needs to see a vet. The service also benefits vet clinics — 80 per cent of after-hours calls Animal HealthLink receives are not true emergencies, and can therefore be seen during regular business hours.

Last year, Animal HealthLink and Veterinarians Without Borders North America (with funding from PetSmart Charities of Canada) launched the first veterinary telehealth program for the remote communities of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, where very few veterinary practices exist. The program expanded to include the Jasper Veterinary Clinic to support its community during the Alberta wildfires.

“In this day and age, there’s no reason not to use technology to our advantage to improve access to care in areas where there is little to no veterinary care,” says Mustillo.

Need to know: Since 2021, Animal HealthLink has handled more than 400,000 calls for animal patients across Canada and the U.S.

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When Philippe Burns was a customer experience team lead at Neo Financial in 2020, part of his job was to create a 50-person team to help onboard half a million new Neo/Hudson’s Bay Mastercard customers in just four months. After a promotion to talent marketing lead, Burns was helping Neo hire more senior-level tech staff when he noticed a lack of social and networking events for the tech community at large.

So, Burns created Tech Thursday, a weekly community networking event series. In July 2024, Burns left Neo (at that point, he was the lead, external relations) to co-found Tech Thursday as its own company, with Neo as the title sponsor for its events. Tech Thursday events currently run in both Calgary and Winnipeg.

In Calgary, Tech Thursday usually meets at The Pioneer and averages around 100 attendees per event. Each event focuses on one of four topic pillars: business, technical know-how, local trends and DEI. Past events have focused on innovations in hydrogen, the impact of AI and mental health tech, along with featured panels and fireside chats with various organizations. The company has city-specific steering committees that generate event and topic ideas. Around 65 per cent of the audience are senior-level tech managers, C-suite executives and founders, with the rest being mostly intermediate and junior tech workers.

“What we wanted to create is this environment where you could go meet with your peers, learn from what they were building and creating, and really showcase some of the awesome work being done in these two communities,” says Burns.

What’s Next? Tech Thursday plans to launch in Ottawa and Edmonton by mid-2025.

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In 2023, Avenue spoke to Toast co-founders April Hicke (chief growth officer) and Marissa McNeelands (CEO). That was shortly after they launched their organization, which supports the advancement of women in technology by helping job-seekers and hiring companies find and hire more women in tech. At that time, the duo had already secured 27 partnerships with organizations such as Helcim, AltaML and PurposeMed.

Today, Toast is part of the 1.9 per cent of women-owned businesses that have achieved more than $1 million in revenue. Toast has secured partnerships with more than 125 clients across Canada and the U.S., including some of the countries’ biggest tech companies. It’s welcomed more than 1,600 members (and added more than 10,000 women into their talent pool), and hosted more than 200 events. Bottom line, Toast has helped put more women into roles in the Canadian tech sector and change the conversation about bias in hiring.

In 2024, Toast expanded twice. First, Toast launched chapters in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. In Canada, Toast launched Champions, a twice-yearly sponsorship program where male tech professionals are paired with Toast members whom they sponsor in the workplace through advocacy, support and guidance.

“The main difference between a mentor and a sponsor is that a sponsor is someone who raises your hand for you when you’re not in the room,” says Hicke. “That allyship should cost [the sponsor] something — time, money, social capital. Whatever that means to show up as an ally, sponsors show up for you in that way.”

Need to Know: Toast won the Digital Talent Champion Award at the 2024 Start Alberta Tech Awards.

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