A company that successfully launched a satellite into space was recognized as the "Most Edmonton Startup of the Year" at the third annual YEG Startup Community Awards on May 10.
Wyvern specializes in high-resolution hyperspectral imaging taken from space for use in agriculture, energy, mining, forestry, and defence. Dragonette-001, which was launched on the SpaceX Transporter 7 mission on April 14, is the first of three satellites the company plans to launch this year, while it continues to work on a deployable telescope to get even better images.
CEO Chris Robson said he and his co-founders started Wyvern because they wanted to stay in Alberta and have a career in space. "It's great … to be able to have our team do that kind of thing here," he said as he accepted the award. "It's also fun to have a satellite in space — it's pretty cool!"
Wyvern beat out fellow finalists Air Trail, Future Fields, and Loop Strategic Marketing for the award, which recognizes the startup "that has most embodied the spirit of Edmonton's startup community in the past year (and) has shown resilience, innovation, risk-taking, and a great focus on community."
Here are the rest of the awards presented at a ceremony at the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii):
- Best Startup Workplace of the Year: Levven Electronics
- New Startup of the Year: Atadel
- Pivot of the Year: True Angle Medical
- Community Champion of the Year: Gail Powley of Technology Alberta
- Connector of the Year: Paramita Chaudhuri Basu of Applied Pharmaceutical Innovation
- Volunteer of the Year: Keenan Pascal of Token Naturals
- Mentor of the Year: Shaheel Hooda of Sprout.vc
- Student Entrepreneur of the Year: Sam Yasinski
- Community Initiative of the Year: Health Innovators' Meetup from the Health Innovation Hub
- Support Organization of the Year: Startup TNT
- Investor of the Year: Arden Tse of Accelerate Fund III