Ottawa earmarks $20 million for Alberta companies through BSP program

Ottawa has pledged more than $20 million in interest-free, repayable funding for 15 projects under the Business Scale-up and Productivity (BSP) program for Alberta companies.

This is expected to create  approximately 537 jobs, expanding markets and enabling increased business revenues in advance of an expected snap election, with each of these investments will give “a fresh opportunity for growth within Alberta’s skilled and innovative workforce.”

Alberta companies receiving support are meant to play crucial roles in Western Canada’s growing economy, including health and life science, value-added manufacturing, clean technology, and the digital economy.

The projects include:

• Avanti Software Inc. (Calgary) is receiving $2,265,811 to improve its human resource management software and expand its market into North America.
• Boost Energy Ventures Inc. (Calgary) is receiving $325,000 in funding to develop and market software for the electricity sector.
• Brightsquid Secure Communications Corp. (Calgary) is receiving $350,000 to expand the market for secure medical messaging technology to Ontario.
• Cohesic Inc. (Calgary) is receiving $552,500 to support the acceleration of marketing and sales of software programs to the healthcare market.
• Custom Metal Contracting Inc. (Calgary) is receiving $2,485,000 to improve manufacturing capabilities through integrated machine automation.
• Enersoft Inc. (Calgary) is receiving $1,375,000 to scale-up geological core scanning technology to increase market reach in the mining sector.
• EPT Clean Oil (Calgary) is receiving $1,288,000 to expand product manufacturing and services for cleaning fluids in industrial equipment which help to extend the life of the equipment.
• Helcim Inc. (Calgary) is receiving $2,000,000 to scale up its merchant payments processing business by enhancing its product offerings and extending its client reach to new markets.
• Kudos Inc. (Calgary) is receiving $1,000,000 for market expansion and growth for its employee engagement solution, due to the recent increase in demand for distributed work solutions.
• Morweb.org (Calgary) is receiving $600,000 to scale up its innovative software which empowers non-profits to manage and grow an online presence through a suite of innovative tools designed to make complex tasks easy for non-technical users around the world.
• Neo Financial Technologies Inc. (Calgary) is receiving $4,980,000 to expand the market of its digital banking platform to central and eastern Canada.
• Paper Interactive, Inc. (Athennian) (Calgary) is receiving $1,500,000 to expand functionality and markets for Athennian, a cloud-based legal entity management program.
• Rane Pharmaceutical Inc. (Edmonton) is receiving $250,000 to scale up manufacturing capacity of a reagent used in viral infection testing.
• SensorUp Inc. (Calgary) is receiving $1,000,000 to develop a software product that integrates methane emission management and reporting for customers in the energy sector.
• Yastremski Associates Inc. (Sustainable Projects Group) (Calgary) is receiving $950,000 to commercialize and scale up its energy efficiency software tool which is used to identify the most economical energy efficiency projects for buildings.