Decoder

Google is bringing Gemini Spark, its 24/7 personal AI agent, to Canada for eligible Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers. The experimental tool is designed to complete multi-step tasks across a user’s digital life under their direction, moving Gemini beyond chat toward proactive, agentic assistance. Spark can work through the Gemini web app, mobile app, and macOS app, helping with planning, research, organization, and follow-through while connected to Google’s broader product ecosystem.

KPMG Canada has formed a strategic alliance with OpenAI to help Canadian organizations move from AI pilots to enterprise-wide deployment. The firm has been named an OpenAI Elite Partner, the highest tier in OpenAI’s Partner Network, and will combine OpenAI technology with KPMG’s transformation, governance, and risk management expertise.

Wealthsimple reported $17 billion in net flows in the second quarter, its largest quarter ever, as assets under administration nearly doubled year over year. The Toronto fintech says growth was driven by demand for chequing and spending products, not only investing. The update follows a product push into household finance, business chequing, kids and teens accounts, authorized trading, spending insights, and monthly rewards.

Toronto startup Terminal has raised a Series A round led by Battery Ventures, with participation from existing backers Y Combinator and Wayfinder Ventures, plus Intact’s private capital arm and truck dealer Penske. The 17-person company unifies data from trucks, including dashcam footage, GPS coordinates, dashboard warnings, and 325 connected data sources, so insurers, financial firms, and service providers can use it more easily. Terminal says the funding will help meet partner demand.

New York fintech Ramp has launched its finance platform in Canada and is opening a downtown Toronto office to support local customers. The Canadian offering combines corporate cards, payments, expense management, tax automation, approvals, reimbursements, bill payments, and accounting workflows. Businesses can issue Canadian-dollar physical and virtual cards alongside U.S.-dollar virtual cards, while Ramp’s software captures GST, HST, PST, and QST information from receipts.

Liquid Interactive has launched from Canadian AI venture studio AXL with $700,000 CAD in pre-seed funding and a bet that AI’s next interface will be interactive, not text-based. Co-founded by Sasha Ivanov and Ben Pearman, the company began inside AXL after the pair built Maple Scan, an iOS app with 130,000 downloads. Its first product, Liquid Photos, turns iPhone camera rolls into visual experiences users can swipe through, pull apart, question, share online, or export as video.

Montreal-based Shakepay has joined Interac e-Transfer as a Participant, giving the bitcoin-focused financial app more direct access to one of Canada’s core payment rails. The move follows Interac’s broader expansion of network access to regulated payment service providers, after similar steps by Wealthsimple, Neo Financial, and KOHO.

Vancouver-based TravelAI has acquired the Sonder brand and relaunched Sonder.com as a curated guide to design-led urban accommodations. Through parent UpNext Ventures, TravelAI bought the Sonder word mark, more than 50 global trademark registrations, and over 70 domain names through the court-supervised bankruptcy of Sonder Canada and Hospitalité Sonder Canada. The deal excludes Sonder’s former operating business, properties, leases, inventory, and employees.

Toronto-based ChatFeatured has raised US$2 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed round to build an autonomous AI search agent for marketing teams. The financing was led by Storytime Capital, with participation from Garage Capital and BY Venture Partners.

Rogers says its 5G+ network carried 510 terabytes of wireless data as Canada hosted soccer’s biggest event, equal to uploading 102 million photos. The company invested $27 million in Toronto and Vancouver network upgrades ahead of 13 World Cup matches, covering stadiums, watch parties, fan zones, hotels, airports, transit hubs, and other high-traffic areas.