Toronto Tech Week spotlights U of T founders and 500 events
Toronto Tech Week opens this week with more than 500 events across the city, and toronto tech week is putting University of Toronto-connected founders from Cohere, Xanadu and Waabi in front of investors, policymakers and the public. The schedule turns a week of panels into a live test of how far Toronto’s startup pipeline has come.
Christian Weedbrook, the founder and CEO of Xanadu, will take the stage Monday at a marquee town hall. Raquel Urtasun, Waabi’s founder and CEO and a University of Toronto professor of computer science, will join a fireside chat with University of Toronto President Melanie Woodin.
Christian Weedbrook and Raquel Urtasun
The event list also gives U of T-linked companies a public proving ground at a moment when their businesses are moving quickly. Xanadu became the first pure-play photonic quantum computing company to go public in March, and it listed on both the Nasdaq and the Toronto Stock Exchange that month.
Last week, Xanadu struck a deal to raise an additional US$300 million. That kind of capital, paired with a public listing, gives the company more room to scale while asking the market to judge whether photonic quantum computing can keep attracting serious money.
Cohere, Waabi and U of T
Cohere co-founders Aidan Gomez, Ivan Zhang and Nick Frosst are also part of the U of T-connected group in view this week. Cohere recently announced a transatlantic merger with Germany's Aleph Alpha and deepened its push into life sciences last week with the acquisition of Reliant AI.
Waabi raised up to US$1 billion in January in a deal backed by Uber to deploy a fleet of robotaxis. The company’s pitch now arrives at Toronto Tech Week beside a broader question for the city: whether Toronto can keep converting research talent into companies that can raise, list and expand at the same pace.
Convocation Hall and Wednesday
On Tuesday, the University of Toronto hosts the Desjardins Speaker Series at Convocation Hall with Databricks co-founder Reynold Xin and Ada CEO Mike Murchison. On Wednesday, Nick Frosst is a headliner at Toronto Tech Week's mainstage event.
Toronto now has the third-largest tech talent pool in North America, behind only the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle. Canada’s tech talent grew by 5.9 per cent in 2024, compared with 1.1 per cent in the U.S., and that gap is the backdrop for a week built around the question Jon French put plainly: “It’s a moment for Canada to bet on ourselves.”
The harder question for readers watching these events is whether Toronto Tech Week can turn a crowded calendar into durable business outcomes for the companies on stage.
