OTTAWA — An Ottawa-area cleantech firm is taking a unique approach to land heavy-hitting customers, letting them build their own versions of its energy efficiency software using a large store of IP the firm has accumulated. 

To make the model work, Kanata, Ont.-based BluWave-AI has amassed a portfolio of patents that makes it a major presence in the space, rivalling the IP that auto giants like Honda and Ford have collected to develop electric vehicles, according to an analysis commissioned by the company. 

It plans to license the IP to clients wanting to build their own bespoke models of its products, which use AI to maximize the efficiency of energy storage, electric transportation and renewable energy sources.

The idea, said CEO Devashish Paul, is to overcome big customers’ doubts about signing on with a relatively small startup.

“Quite often with the large enterprises, they’re like, ‘We want to do this, but we don’t want to be dependent on an emerging tech company,’” said Paul. Some big companies want their own IT teams to have full control of the product, without having to rely on a small external team for support; others worry a small firm might be acquired and its products decommissioned, he said. From the startup’s perspective, there’s a risk that the client simply asks a more established company to come up with a similar solution, Paul added. 

To assuage those concerns, BluWave-AI launched a licensing business last week that lets clients build their own version of its products using its proprietary technology. “If you want to build on top of what we have, you can take a licence from us and fill your boots,” Paul said. “This way, as an emerging Canadian tech company, we don’t get entirely cut out of the loop.”

Though it has a relatively small team of roughly 40 employees, the company says it has collected 60 international patent filings, including 14 granted patents.

That’s the third-most in its sector in Canada, the U.S. and Europe, according to a 2024 Stratford Group analysis commissioned by the company. BluWave-AI is behind only Volvo and Honda, and ahead of Ford, GM and Caterpillar, all of which have gathered patents in the same space for energy storage, power management and power system control.

The new revenue stream has the potential to far surpass the company’s traditional business, Paul said. But the goal is to reinvest it back into BluWave-AI’s own products, which he believes will do more for the environment and the energy transition. “We’re trying to have climate impact,” he said. 

The way BluWave-AI is employing its patents is rare in Canada, said Mike McLean, CEO of the Innovation Asset Collective, a government-funded organization that supports IP retention and growth in the Canadian cleantech sector. “It can be seen as a way to de-risk an investment in a new technology,” he said. 

The few companies that have adopted similar models in Canada have typically abandoned their own product lines and moved entirely to licensing, McLean said. 

BluWave-AI, by contrast, plans to use the income from the licences to continue to build its products, grow its marketing and sales departments and, it hopes, become established enough that major customers feel confident buying from it directly. 

The strategy has been used in the wireless and semiconductor industries by companies like California-based Qualcomm, but BluWave-AI is among the first to try it in the AI space, McLean said. 

BluWave-AI is “definitely doing a thorough job capturing the innovation that they’re producing,” he said, adding he hopes the company will serve as an example to other Canadian firms. 

“They’re taking a very public step by setting up an independent business unit to focus on this,” he said. “It sends a certain message and shines a light on the importance of IP.”