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In venture-capital lingo, a “unicorn” is a privately held startup valued at US$1 billion or more. Not every company on this list meets that technical definition. But the larger point is that ideas conceived in Atlantic Canada are finding customers, capital and consequence far beyond these shores. Here are five worth watching.
COLAB: ENGINEERING THE ENGINEERS
Once upon a time, two students needed a better way to build a vehicle together. Now, some of the world’s biggest manufacturers are using it to build theirs.
In 2017, Memorial University’s Adam Keating and Jeremy Andrews were working from St. John’s and Ottawa while competing in the SpaceX Hyperloop Competition. Building the pod remotely showed them how difficult complex design collaboration could be. Their co-op placements showed them something else: even big engineering companies were still using spreadsheets, slide decks and email to track design problems. So they built the fix.
Today, CoLab uses AI to help engineering teams review designs, preserve technical knowledge and find problems earlier. Bombardier signed a multi-year, multimillion-dollar deal with the company in April. CoLab raised US$72 million in November 2025 and has grown to more than 250 employees.
VERAFIN: FROM MINING ROBOTS TO DIRTY MONEY
In the fall of 2002, Memorial University engineers Jamie King, Raymond Pretty and Brendan Brothers were developing software to help robots navigate dangerous underground mines. David Kelly, a Memorial commerce graduate and technology entrepreneur, suggested a different opportunity.
Kelly had spent years building cash-management software and he saw a need for more sophisticated anti-money-laundering software. He suggested the trio turn their artificial-intelligence work to identifying financial crime.
That connection became Verafin in 2003. Newfoundland and Labrador Credit Union became its first proving ground. Larger Canadian and U.S. institutions followed. Eventually, Nasdaq bought Verafin for US$2.75 billion in 2021 while keeping its headquarters in St. John’s.
Today, more than 2,800 financial institutions representing US$13 trillion in assets use Verafin technology to look for fraud, money laundering and other financial crime.
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