The Information Technology Industry Council, a U.S.-based lobbying firm that advocates for tech firms around the world, renewed its calls for Ottawa to back off its planned digital-services tax and urged the government to strike a deal through an OECD- and G20-led process. (The Logic)
The energy companies said that several industries would use the carbon-transportation project, allowing them to make multibillion-dollar investments in the project through long-term fee-for-service contracts. (The Logic)
Digital-design company Canva looked at Fiverr listings for 8,605 active sellers across 50 popular jobs, and found Canadian freelancers had the fourth-highest earnings of 10 countries in the OECD—behind the U.S., U.K. and Italy. (The Logic)
The Burlington, Ont.-based company said it now aims to raise $175 million by going public on the Toronto Stock Exchange. It initially expected to bring in $200 million. (The Logic)
The Toronto-based edtech company, which makes software tools like interactive textbooks, online testing platforms and attendance tracking, will make its courses available to students using D2L’s Brightspace course-management software. (The Logic)
The Series D was a follow-on investment for both Georgian and Insight Partners, which also led the round. U.K.-based Tractable helps insurance companies conduct remote damage appraisals using AI and computer-vision tools. The financing more than doubles the firm’s total amount raised to date, valuing it at US$1 billion. (The Logic)
The Bank of Canada governor said at a Wednesday meeting with the Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce that Canada needs to do a better job keeping the benefits of domestic research within Canada. “This is a longstanding issue in Canada,” Macklem said. “Too often, what’s happening is a Canadian invention gets commercialized in Silicon Valley, and many of the benefits flow south of the border.” (The Logic)
The two energy-infrastructure companies announced a partnership to retrofit oil pipelines and build new systems that would transport more than 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted by Alberta industries to locations where it can be used or sequestered, rather than released into the atmosphere. (The Logic)
CEO Guy LeBlanc is aiming to pour $1 billion to $2 billion in public funds, with $4 billion to $6 billion in private investment, in the battery industry, which helps support companies like Nouveau Monde Graphite, Mason Graphite and Nemaska Lithium. But each phase of battery production—from making battery-grade lithium, to cathodes, to cells, to recycling—requires steep investments, LeBlanc said. (La Presse)
Thirty-four women, including one Canadian, filed a civil suit in a U.S. district court in California, saying the Montreal-founded technology company had posted private or non-consensual videos of them on sites including its flagship site Pornhub. Among the defendants is Visa, which the lawsuit says aided “the MindGeek Criminal Enterprise” by “engineering and facilitating credit card and financial transactions to siphon off illicit profits and avoid credit card red flags.” Asked for comment, Pornhub would only provide a statement via what a company executive has admitted is a false identity. Visa Canada didn’t respond to a request for comment. (The Logic)