Under darkened clouds as a storm threatened, the mood on day two of Toronto’s Elevate technology conference reflected a moment of uncertainty for many in the industry.

Spanning three venues and a so-called block party in the city’s Esplanade area, thousands of executives, entrepreneurs and investors (as well as stars from Venus Williams to Chris Hadfield) flocked to take part in conversations about where Canadian tech goes from here.

Here are the highlights from what The Logic saw and heard on Wednesday: 

No clear skies ahead: Clearco co-founder and CEO Michele Romanow addressed recent cutbacks at the merchant-financing company. “Being an entrepreneur is an extremely hard job, it is largely masochistic, even when the sun is shining,” she said. “When it starts raining, and you go into cloudier economic conditions, this is a very difficult thing … we had anticipated a ton of international growth this year that didn’t make sense to continue doing when the markets turned.” She said companies must adapt and pay attention to products that aren’t working, “even when those adaptations are very, very painful.”

The biggest tech news wasn’t even at Elevate: Janet Bannister stole the show after Montreal-based Real Ventures announced the managing partner is stepping down. Co-founder and partner John Stokes will fill the role. Bannister will stay on as a partner and maintain relationships with her existing portfolio companies, but will not pursue new investments with Real as she transitions to a part-time role. In an interview with The Logic, Bannister said the decision was “100 per cent my decision.” She acknowledged the firm had struggled to raise its latest investment round, which is now on hold. 

BDC launches $500M fund, network for women founders: The Thrive Venture Fund and Lab for Women more than doubles the Crown corporation’s support for women, following its $200-million Women in Tech fund launched in 2017. Its approach is three-pronged: $300 million will go to investing directly in women-led companies at the seed, Series A and Series B stages; $100 million will go towards a “lab” that will explore “innovative equity investment models” and fund pre-seed startups; and the last $100 million will go towards women-led investment funds. “Together these pillars provide a comprehensive approach to addressing the existing funding gaps we currently see in the market,” BDC CEO Isabelle Hudon said on stage.  

Open banking ready to launch?: Fintechs are eager for Canada to introduce an open banking system, which would make it easier for them to compete with legacy financial institutions. An overflow crowd attended a panel featuring federal open banking lead Abraham Tachjian. Hired in March, he’s tasked with overseeing the system’s design. The first phase of that work is supposed to be done by the end of September 2023, but Tachjian—who declined The Logic’s interview request—wouldn’t say whether it’s on schedule.

Crypto clarity, please: Executives from Wealthsimple, Coinsquare and crypto-storage firm Balance said Canadian securities regulators’ efforts to register cryptocurrency-trading platforms have brought both benefits and challenges. Wealthsimple’s head of crypto Danish Ajmeri said he’d like regulators to clarify their view on staking, in which crypto asset holders agree to lock up tokens for a period of time and participate in the network’s security and operations in exchange for rewards. “It’s something we’ve been working very closely with the regulators on.”