Before we get started, a special mention to Québec City, which was chosen as the host of the 2027 Canada Winter Games, thus marking the return of the Games to the city that gave birth to them in 1967. This event will undoubtedly generate excellent benefits for the region.
Investments and financing
Many businesses in the region will have the opportunity to continue their growth thanks to financing received over the past few months. This is the case for the Davie shipyard, which will benefit from nearly $840M from various levels of government, including $519.2M from the provincial government, to upgrade its infrastructure and allow it to meet Ottawa’s criteria in connection with the federal naval strategy.
For its part, OMY Laboratoires has announced that it has completed its first round of financing, five years after the start of the company. The co-founders, Andrea Gomez and Rachelle Séguin, have obtained $11M to set off in conquest of the North American market. Micro Logic, an information technology solutions provider, has also received $50M in financing to accelerate its growth. Finally, the Québec-based company AddÉnergie, which does business under the name Flo, has secured a $220M loan from the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB), which it will use to deploy its network of charging stations across Canada.
Honourable mentions
The business world in Québec stands out on many levels, but it is always nice to see it through the receipt of special awards. VMware, the world leader in cloud solutions, awarded Micro Logic’s Cirrus sovereign cloud an “exceptional level of qualification,” a distinction held by fewer than 1% of clouds on the planet. For its part, Genius ERP, which offers a manufacturing software solution, was included in the Best Small Business Manufacturing Software Guide produced by Software Advice, the leading online service for businesses in the software selection process.
And because it isn’t just with awards that a business can stand out, De Marque, a leader in digital content distribution, was able to get people talking about it in a very positive way by acquiring 2,000 Ukrainian-language digital books, meeting a significant demand due to the conflict with Russia. Congratulations on this wonderful initiative!
Growth outside of Quebec
Developing markets outside of Quebec is one of the objectives of many businesses in the region, and we have seen the results of efforts in this area in recent months. Thanks to a round of financing that allowed it to collect $12M, Brizo Data, which created Brizo FoodMetrics, a source of near-real-time analysis of the food services market in North America, will begin actions in Europe and Oceania in the coming months.
In April, Icentia announced that it received 510(k) marketing authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which will allow it to sell its CardioSTAT single-use wireless heart rate recorder in the United States.
Réverbère, whose mission is to support businesses on Meta to increase the profitability of their digital investments, also announced good news in May: the expansion of its activities in Europe with the opening of a first subsidiary in France.
Finally, UgoWork, a manufacturer of lithium-ion battery solutions and services for industrial trucks, announced its desire to expand its presence in the US market and plans to fill several sales representative positions over the coming year to support its growth in this country.
International collaborations and explorations
To conclude this column, allow me to highlight the success of Québec International’s trade and economic mission to Paris in the presence of the mayor of Québec City, Bruno Marchand, in late April. This mission allowed eight companies from the region to explore the French market, meet various stakeholders, and do some prospecting on the other side of the Atlantic. One of these entrepreneurs was also talked about in the Québec media in response to this trip. You can discover the story of David Beaulieu, CEO of Today is Art Day, in this article published by Le Soleil.
Finally, I would like to highlight an excellent partnership that will help improve the productivity of our manufacturing companies. In April, the Réseau des Centres d’expertise industrielle (RCEI), of which CEI Québec is a part, concluded a historic three-year agreement with the German association Labs Network Industrie 4.0 with a view to carrying out international collaborations to accelerate the digital shift of manufacturing companies.
Congratulations to all these companies and organizations that promote the greater Québec City region around the world! Would you also like to take your business to new heights? Contact our team now; they will be able to support you in your growth project.
Carl Viel
President/CEO of Québec International
