As Alberta companies are increasingly using artificial intelligence in the workplace, Calgary’s tech sector continues to strengthen its position as a hub for startups to grow, as local AI firm Ontopical has been acquired by Sovra, a leading North American GovTech company.The acquisition will see Calgary become Sovra’s new AI Centre of Excellence (CoE), underscoring the city’s continued rise as a leader in applied AI.Founded in 2020, Ontopical is at the forefront of developing AI-powered tools that analyze public data to help businesses identify government contract opportunities before they are publicly tendered.Ontopical’s system allows firms across many sectors to stay ahead of procurement trends and act on opportunities months sooner than traditional methods allow.Sovra — which is backed by global private equity giant KKR — provides digital procurement technology to 7,000 government agencies and more than one million private-sector suppliers across North America.By bringing Ontopical into the fold, Sovra will strengthen its data-intelligence capabilities and expand its reach in the fast-growing GovTech market.“Ontopical analyzes over 2 million pages of government-produced content each week to help companies find more business opportunities with government agencies,” Clayton Feick, formerly CEO of Ontopical, now President, Supplier at Sovra, told the Western Standard..The acquisition comes at a time when Calgary’s innovation economy is diversifying and accelerating across software-as-a-service (SaaS), applied artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), fintech, and quantum and advanced technologies.According to CBRE, Calgary is home to North America’s fastest-growing tech-talent market, with tech employment rising 61% between 2021 and 2024, and competition in the GovTech sector is strong in the city, with other companies such as HelpSeeker, SensorUp, and Bidaya.ai also making waves.Ontopical has also benefited from support through Accelerate Fund III and the Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund, which helped it attract early customers and investor attention.By reaching a successful acquisition in under six years — far faster than usual for most tech exits — it highlights the speed at which startups can scale in Calgary.“Calgary is world-class when it comes to tech talent,” Feick said.“With strong talent pools built by U of C and U of A, and organizations like AMII in our backyard, we've been able to grow a great team in downtown Calgary. Ontopical has also been fortunate to attract individuals from BC, Ontario, and Europe in recent years to build our technical bench.”Calgary has invested heavily in supporting startups such as this, especially through the city’s open-data portal, the Calgary 5G Discovery Zone testbed, and ecosystem builders such as Platform Calgary, Innovate Calgary, Plug and Play Alberta, and Quantum City.“This is exactly what we mean when we talk about Calgary as a city where companies can start, scale, and succeed globally,” said Brad Parry, president and CEO of Calgary Economic Development (CED).“Ontopical’s success — and Sovra’s decision to expand here — shows the world is taking notice of the innovation and talent developing in Calgary.”The company’s Calgary team will now lead Sovra’s AI operations from an office in the Beltline that will grow to a staff of 50 employees.The new AI Centre of Excellence will serve as a hub for machine-learning researchers and engineers developing next-generation tools for Sovra’s government and enterprise clients.“The AI CoE is the nucleus for new machine-learning research and innovation that is now being prototyped and implemented into Sovra's suite of solutions for businesses looking to grow their share of the over $2 trillion government procurement market in North America,” Feick said..Alberta introduces new levy framework for AI data centres .Feick added the Beltline location is focused on “unstructured data projects and developing agentic workflows,” which are the same technologies behind Ontopical’s AI copilot, “Oliver.”The system analyzes real-time government documents and provides proactive insights to businesses, from identifying upcoming procurement opportunities to drafting outreach messages and analyzing competition.“Oliver” will now be deployed across vast amounts of data collected by Sovra,” Feick said.“Imagine Oliver telling you to call Mr. John Smith, Director of IT in Missoula, Montana, as they are about to discuss the purchase of a new financial-software system with an approved budget of $300,000 in a council meeting next week. Oliver then writes the outreach email to Mr. Smith, capturing all important details about the issue, including challenges with the existing system.“Once Missoula publishes the solicitation for bids, Oliver analyzes the competitive landscape and helps your business respond quickly and strategically. This type of workflow is invaluable to a business-development team.”Feick says this will help governments manage their budgets as more bidders come to the process and drive competition.He added that the public sector benefits from “lower costs and higher quality for the products and services they consume with taxpayer dollars.”Feick also emphasized the broader shift underway in the sector when asked what trend he found to be the most exciting going forward.“The development of agentic solutions across proprietary data in GovTech is very exciting, as it will help bring efficiency to inefficient markets. More companies will be able to compete for — and therefore win — more business with government,” he said.“Right now, specifically in Canada, many public agencies have passed ‘Buy Canada’ resolutions. This, together with new major projects and increased defense spending, is making procurement transparency and efficiency paramount. We’re seeing a huge influx of companies joining our platform to participate in these growing areas across Canada.”
