Prairies Economic Development Canada (PrairiesCan) is investing more than $17 million to support 11 companies and three service providers in Edmonton's innovation community.
The recipients of the largest sums are PBG BioPharma, which will receive $5.39 million to increase its biopharmaceutical manufacturing capacity, and AltaML, which will receive $2.58 million to scale up its business development and marketing capacity.
RWI Synthetics will receive $900,000 to adapt its artificial intelligence-enabled synthetic modelling platform to "better support clean energy transition modelling" and for marketing to increase sales. Co-founder and CEO Myrna Bittner said the funding would help her company "accelerate transformative and convergent futures in energy, mobility and resilience."
Other businesses to get funding are Dryrun, EC Labs, Landmark Group of Companies, RJ MacLean Inc., Sidekick, Smart Access, Sparrow Connected, and The Organic Box.
Innovate Edmonton will receive $779,310 to develop a procurement model for small and medium-sized businesses to test their technologies with the City of Edmonton. CEO Catherine Warren said the project — dubbed "Capital City Pilots" — will provide companies with "a flagship municipal client to showcase on the international stage." This is in addition to the $490,625 the organization received to create an Innovation Gallery as part of a separate PrairiesCan announcement on community-led infrastructure.
NAIT will receive $1.39 million to develop a standalone 5G network for product testing, and Startup TNT will receive $780,000 to support its investment summits.
The federal government said it expects the investment to create 882 jobs.