Ask HN: What are some cool or underrated tech companies based in Canada?
55 comments
·July 8, 2025bnchrch
Heres a few:
kimos
Clio is a gem. I know a few great people who Shopify chewed through that ended up there and are happy.
loloquwowndueo
HTTPS://transit.app is amazing for public transport routing. Gives you a lot more information than the stock mapping apps. Some of the things they do are pure black magic.
shrinks99
Their 2016 post on how they render their lines is really nice and full of cool images: https://blog.transitapp.com/how-we-built-the-worlds-pretties...
jason-at-spare
I work at https://spare.com/
We make tools for transit agencies to manage paratransit and microtransit services, mainly for people with disabilities but also for campuses and low-density areas. Managing these types of services is a real, hard problem with billions spent every year.
Our customers include Winnipeg, Oakville, St John, Saskatoon, and Powell River (also Dallas, LA, Austin, more in Japan and Europe), with more coming soon - including driverless vehicles with routing and scheduling powered by us.
We're Vancouver-based, and we're hiring :)
halfdaft
SideFX, makers of VFX software Houdini https://www.sidefx.com/
And Derivative, makers of video & interactive software Touch Designer https://derivative.ca/
(Both packages have a shared origin I believe)
aprdm
So many great companies, thanks for starting this & people for sharing
helsontaveras18
I think we’re pretty cool! https://www.trykeep.com
iamjs
We are building some exciting cloud deployment tools at https://defang.io.
We are making it super easy to manage your deployments through the compose.yaml file you probably already have. The idea is to have a single definition of your application, that you can use locally, and project it into any cloud.
We're a small team based in Vancouver. If you're in town, reach out and come visit: jordan.stephens@defang.io
norrsson
https://www.landr.com/ has been around for a while with its automated audio mastering service and it's now a one-stop-shop for everything related to music production. There's also really cool stuff coming up in a few months:)
propter_hoc
https://sabotagestudio.com/ near Quebec City, they made the amazing 2D JRPG Sea of Stars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Stars
Very excellent takeoff of Chrono Trigger or Lufia 2 type SNES games. Truly exceptional.
mattbettinson
I make https://voicecast.app/ and I’m based in Toronto :P
I also work at https://www.getjobber.com/ which is based in Edmonton.
toomuchtodo
Voicecast looks awesome. Are you considering a video version?
Thanks for commenting, would’ve never found your product otherwise.
jonathonlacher
https://getmysa.com/ - their bread and butter are line voltage “smart” thermostats.
I have a few in my home, they say they’re based in St. John’s.
nunez
I interviewed at Wrapbook a few years ago and really liked them. They're worth a look! Based out of Toronto, IIRC.
I'm based in Canada and curious to learn more about interesting or up-and-coming tech companies here — not just the usual big names like Shopify or Lightspeed, but also smaller startups, bootstrapped companies, or niche players doing great work in software, hardware, AI, sustainability, fintech, etc.