Decoder

Canada Rocket Company is investing $30 million to build Canada’s first large-scale rocket engine test facility in London, Ontario. Named for astronaut Jeremy Hansen, the 50-acre site at London International Airport will include a 12,000-square-foot office and fabrication building plus up to three vertical and horizontal test stands capable of testing engines above one meganewton of thrust.

Calgary-based PurposeMed, the company behind HIV-prevention platform Freddie, is being acquired by Grindr for US$250 million. The deal includes US$190 million in cash and US$60 million in stock, with up to US$70 million more tied to 2027 performance targets. Founded in 2019, PurposeMed combines virtual consultations, clinical care, and pharmacy services for underserved communities.

Bell Canada and Cisco have signed an agreement to explore sovereign AI infrastructure for Canadian organizations, combining Bell’s domestic data centres and networks with Cisco’s computing, security, and infrastructure management technology. The partnership targets government, regulated industries, and other customers seeking greater control over sensitive AI workloads, supporting both training and inference.

Toronto-based Biossil has raised US$153 million in an all-equity financing led by the OpenAI Startup Fund, valuing the biotech at US$1 billion and giving Canada another unicorn. Biossil acquires or licenses drug candidates that previously failed to reach market, then uses AI to identify which molecules may deserve a second chance in clinical development.

Elevate has rebranded as Nrth, expanding beyond its annual Toronto festival into a year-round platform for Canadian founders and business leaders. CEO Lisa Zarzeczny unveiled the new name during opening night of the 2026 festival, which immediately became Nrth Festival. Since launching in 2017, the organization has welcomed more than 89,000 attendees.

Shopify is partnering with Meta to bring Shop Pay checkout to Muse, Meta’s new personal AI agent. The integration will let Muse users browse products from Shopify merchants and complete purchases using Shop Pay, extending Shopify’s commerce infrastructure into agent-driven shopping. CEO Tobias Lütke described the partnership as an easier way to shop and check out through AI, while Meta says the deal expands the range of products available inside Muse.

TD Bank Group is committing up to $25 million over three years to expand AI development and adoption through a collaboration between Cohere and its Layer 6 research team. Cohere specialists will work alongside Layer 6 at Toronto’s MaRS Discovery District, combining enterprise AI models with TD’s applied research capabilities. Initial work will focus on knowledge management, productivity, decision-making, and client experiences, with an emphasis on security and responsible adoption.

Travel platform Wander has acquired the team behind Polarity, an applied AI research lab focused on agents and model post-training. Founded by Shane Barakat, Alex Ungureanu, and Mihai Posea, Polarity studied how AI agents navigate large codebases, learn recurring tasks, and improve after deployment. The team will bring that expertise into Wander’s engineering stack, helping accelerate development of Wander.com and WanderOS, its operating system for vacation-rental operators.

Waterloo-founded TextNow has surpassed $1 billion in cumulative revenue after 16 years of largely bootstrapped growth. The app-based phone service reached the milestone without venture capital or institutional backing beyond an initial $1.5 million seed round, while remaining profitable. Founded in 2009, TextNow serves millions of consumers across North America with free nationwide talk and text over 5G, plus flexible paid data options.

Snap has expanded its SPECS augmented reality glasses with new AI, entertainment, shopping, navigation, translation, fitness, and workplace features. The company also introduced SPECS Intelligence, an anticipatory AI service designed to understand a user’s goals, routines, relationships, and priorities across iPhone, Mac, and SPECS, surfacing help without waiting for prompts.