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At Best Startup Canada we track over 100,000 Canadian startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top British Columbia based CEO’ operating in the Apps space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.ca.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Alex Wick
Founder/CEO of Cascadia Carbon
Alex Wick is a forester, data scientist and visionary, working at the intersection of climate change, carbon, cryptography, and coding. Living a conscious, low-carbon lifestyle since 2009.
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About Cascadia Carbon, Woodstock Chai: Building CODEX: A carbon-neutral blockchain cryptocurrency for carbon offset generation and storage
Ryan Peterson
CEO and Co-Founder of Finger Food Studios
Ryan Peterson is the CEO and Co-Founder of Finger Food Advanced Technology Group. He sets the course for the organization with his extraordinary vision, strategic planning, and unshakeable passion. Under Ryan’s leadership as CEO, Finger Food has seen tremendous growth, transforming from a small basement startup to a multi-million dollar company with 180+ employees. Finger Food builds custom technology solutions to solve some of the most complex and challenging problems faced by businesses today in industries including games, retail, oil & gas, education, healthcare, mining and more. The company creates a competitive advantage for its clients by helping them own their technology stack, rather than simply deploying on the same technology platforms as their competitors. In-house expertise in AI, AR/VR, Blockchain, Robotics, and IoT, enables Finger Food to create impactful and elegant cloud, web, mobile, machine and advanced-interface solutions built on top of emerging technologies. Finger Food sees an unprecedented market opportunity. Within 3 years, the cumulative R&D spend of the Global 1,000 will reach USD 1T. A conservative estimate would put the innovation spend of each of these companies at around USD 100MM annually.
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About Finger Food Studios: Finger Food delivers technology-driven business solutions that enable companies to move and innovate faster.
Ryan Spong
Co-Founder & CEO of Food.ee
Founder of Food.ee.
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About Food.ee: Food.ee is a fun and simple service which delivers meals, snacks, cakes and alcohol to your office.
Michael Cole
Co-Founder and CEO of Picniic
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About Agents Only, Picniic: Picniic is every family’s personal assistant, keeping households organized, productive, and connected.
Dejan Mirkovic
CEO, Co-founder & Board Member of Goose Insurance Services
Dejan is no stranger to leading a flock into unknown territory. As the founder of Cityfone™ Telecommunications (Canada’s first independent mobile virtual network operator), Dejan successfully launched their wireless brands, leading Rogers Wireless. Most recently, he was VP of Corporate Development at airG™ Wireless, a global mobile-first social entertainment platform serving over 100 million consumers worldwide. As a co-founder and board member of Square One Insurance Services, Dejan has easily migrated all his boundless industry expertise and insight to Goose. And like all of our flock, Dejan loves to travel. He’s been to 40 countries across 4 continents. His favourite spot to date is the Australian Gold Coast for its stellar beaches, climate and sumptuous seafood.
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About Goose Insurance Services, Square One Insurance: Mobile First B2C Insurance Platform
Landon Hamilton
Co-Founder/CEO of Fitplan
CEO of Fitplan
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About Fitplan, Total Fitness and Nutrition: A mobile fitness app with interactive training programs world’s best personal trainers at your fingertips – anytime, anywhere.
Cameron Wallin
CEO of AppBridge
Cameron Wallin is founder and CEO at AppBridge.
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About AppBridge: AppBridge is a application developer and facilitating the transformation of work.
Brent Perry
CEO of Plan B Energy Storage
Brent Perry is a leader in energy solutions for the commercial marine and industrial sectors. Brent has personally been involved in most of the hybrid and electric ferry projects on the water today. A thought leader for the industries he works in, Brent speaks at numerous climate and energy conferences including: United Nations COP21, ENOVA, and ZERO and is a Special Adviser to the Chinese Government for Energy Policy.
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About Plan B Energy Storage: Plan B Energy Storage manufactures high power energy storage systems.
Chris Jensen
Co-Founder & CEO of Left™
Chris began his career in the UK working for multi-nationals and banks and continued on in the banking and brokerage industry upon moving to Canada. He has a strong understanding of the finance markets and has lived the pain of raising capital for early stage companies during the beginning stages of growth, from 25 to 80+ employees. He has founded several start-up companies in his career, two of which have now won BCTIA Tech Impact Awards. In his role as CEO for Left, Chris thrives on understanding the big picture and on moving the levers that drive the company forward. This includes financing, strategic partnerships, and corporate development. Chris holds a BSc (Honours) in Economics and History from Queen Mary University of London.
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About Left™, RightMesh: Left is a multinational media and technology company with holdings in a diversified portfolio of mobile and Internet-based businesses.
Raj Gulia
Co-founder & CEO of PocketPills
Raj Gulia is a Co-Founder at PocketPills.
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About PocketPills: Pocketpills is Canada’s leading online pharmacy, delivers medication by the dose, straight to customer’s door.
Kristoffer Vik Hansen
CEO & Co Founder of Spare
Kristoffer is CEO of Spare where they are creating the next wave of transit software that will help shift transit agencies into on-demand and autonomous vehicles. With current customers such as Dallas Area Rapid Transit, Toyota, and Mitsubishi, Spare is well on its way to being a major player in the on-demand world. Recently Spare raised $6M from the Mitsubishi Corporation.
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About Spare: Our mission is to accelerate the shift to efficient and autonomous mobility
Mike Wyrzykowski
Founder & CEO of Blackpurl
Mike Wyrzykowski is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Blackpurl.
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About Blackpurl: The first cloud-based dealership management platform built for the dealer who needs more then a DMS.
Kim Kaplan
CEO and Founder of Snack App
Kimberly Kaplan currently works as Chief Executive Officer and the Founder of the Snack App.
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About Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), Snack App: Snack App is a video-first dating application in iOS that connects people online and focuses on Gen-Z.
David Strebinger
Co-Founder & CEO of PayWith
A respected entrepreneur and small business owner with a passion for developing game-changing solutions and technologies in the mobile payments, social media, lead generation and daily deal space.
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About PayWith: PayWith is a mobile application development firm that enables businesses to track data and run gifting, marketing, and loyalty campaigns.
Vivek Zaveri
Founder & CEO of JoJo Technology Solutions Ltd.
Mantra Digital Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Vivek Zaveri, has proven experience building businesses from the ground up. In less than three years, he helped to build a $12 million business as the Director of the Search Marketing and Product Division at Venture Direct Worldwide. In half that time, he built a $30 million lead generation business in the education space at XL Marketing. Zaveri is an expert in the higher education lead generation field and has skillfully developed and executed search campaigns for Liberty University and ITT Technical Institute. His experience with proprietary technologies has led to proven successes with email and social media campaigns. He is currently responsible for the strategic planning and business development of Mantra Digital. As an agency that specializes in lead generation, search engine marketing, and media buying and planning, Mantra Digital also owns subsidiaries such as Mantra Digital India Private Limited and Mantra Digital Incorporated.
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About JoJo Technology Solutions Ltd., Meera A.I.: Jojo is a platform that helps independent cafes compete effectively with the mega chains by leveraging mobile ordering & loyalty programs.
Devan Koshal
Founder, CEO, & Head of Product of Commerce.js
Born in New Zealand, Grew up in England, based out of Vancouver/SF. Founder, CEO, & Head of Product @ Commerce.js (Chec)
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About Commerce.js, Swipe: Commerce.js is a developer of a modular eCommerce platform for developers and designers.
Eric Huang
CEO of BlockCAT Technologies
Eric Huang is a software engineer who’s been writing code for over ten years. He is a twice published author in the field of embedded systems, and was recognized by Forbes for his knack for communicating technical ideas in ways that anybody can understand. He most recently held a position as the Project Lead and Senior Software Engineer on the IonDB project, and continues to contribute back to his local community by teaching introduction to programming at the Vernon Community School.
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About BlockCAT Technologies: BlockCAT lets anyone create, manage, and deploy smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain — no programming required.
Daryl Hatton
CEO of FundRazr
Daryl leads the innovative collaborative funding company ConnectionPoint, producer of the award winning advanced digital fundraising platform FundRazr, the creator community crowdfunding platform Crowdfundr, and the leading edge healthcare crowd-financing platform CoCoPay. As a serial entrepreneur who loves the challenge of building companies from scratch, Daryl is frequently called upon for expert commentary on entrepreneurship, nonprofit fundraising and crowdfunding topics for CBC, CTV, Global News, TVO, PostMedia, BBC, Forbes, and Bloomberg. Today, he serves as board member or advisor to multiple start-ups/scale-ups including FrontFundr, Quandri, WalletCard, and SignR, and serves as Finance Committee Chair and Director of the PayPal Giving Fund (Canada).
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About ConnectionPoint: World’s leading advanced digital fundraising platform
Jake Tyler
CEO / Co-founder of Finn AI
Jake Tyler is Co-founder and CEO at Finn.ai, an award-winning AI powered personal banking and financial management assistant. Finn can regularly be found featured in the likes of USA Today, American Banker and Bloomberg, or on stage at Money20/20, Finovate and VivaTech Paris. Originally from Australia, he has worked and lived in five countries in the last decade. Prior to founding Finn, Jake was a Director at Brook Intelligence, as well as an M&A Strategy Consultant at PMSI Consulting (London). MBA at IE Business School.
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About Finn AI: Finn AI provides AI-powered conversational banking technology for personal banking and finance.
Marcus Charalambous
Chief Executive Officer of Expression
Marcus is the founder & CEO of Backbone, one of Canada’s leading web development companies, and EXPRESSION, an innovative cloud-based web development platform that empowers coders and creators to deliver amazing digital experiences. He believes the power to utilize and communicate through the web should be accessible to everyone and that each digital experience should build strong relationships. He can often be found discussing his experiences in web dev and building cloud-ready infrastructure.
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About Expression: XPR is developer platform that lets you build anything online and works as your digital OS to connect the digital world for your customers
Samarth Mod
CEO of FreshWorks Studio
Samarth is a resilient, passionate and “people-friendly” tech entrepreneur with expertise in designing and developing Mobile Application. He is the CEO & founder of FreshWorks Studio, a Victoria/Vancouver based mobile app development firm. FreshWorks is a brand under AirSenze Solutions Inc. It is incorporated and registered in Canada and pioneers in the development of iOS and Android apps. Samarth was working full time with India’s leading technology consultancy firm Tata Consultancy Services before coming to Canada to pursue his master’s education (MBA). Samarth is a passionate, result-focused, and enthusiastic entrepreneur with strong people skills and ability to perform under pressure. He is a seasoned mobile app developer, a consultant and manager with a rich & diverse experience of more than 6 years in deploying mobile applications in business settings. Samarth possesses the ability to succeed in time constrained and unfamiliar environments, He showed highly effective time and project management capabilities through successes in managing AirSenze’s overall operations simultaneous with a full-time load of MBA courses and case presentations. Samarth has obtained an extensive knowledge of process optimization, client communication, problem identification and producing creative action plans. Samarth is a holder of the MBA degree (Entrepreneurship) and Bachelor’s degree in Engineering in the domain of Information Technology and developed a strong base of Software Engineering.
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About AirSenze, FreshWorks Studio: Your Technology Partner – Custom Software Development, UX/UI, Mobile Apps, and Digital Product Strategy
Steve Anderson
Founder, CEO, Chief Strategist of New/Mode
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About New/Mode, OpenMedia: A multi-channel advocacy platform to activate supporters, reach decision-makers and win cause campaigns.
Hunter Macdonald
CEO and Co-Founder of Tutela
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About Tutela: Tutela crowd-sources mobile usage and experience data from millions of mobile devices every day to provide insight to the mobile industry
Richard Hui
Co-Founder & CEO of Warranty Life
President/CEO at Warranty Life
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About Warranty Life: Providing Usage-Based Mobile Device Insurance
Travis Kirton
Founder, Chief Executive Officer & Director of Flow
Travis currently serves as the Founder and Director of Flow. Having worked at pioneering institutions such as the Ars Electronica Futurelab and the Banff Centre for the Arts, Flow is the culmination of a career spent at the cutting-edge of interaction, design and culture.
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About Flow, Slant Design + Marketing Inc.: Flow provides an animation tool that allows designs to be instantly animated and translated into ready-to-use code.
Jon Voigt
CEO, Co-founder of Agility CMS
I’m the CEO and Co-Founder of Agility CMS, a Headless Content Management System with a content first approach to digital content distribution. We focus on bringing flexibility and ease of use to the world of app and website development or any other digital destination. I’m also a husband, father and big believer that the key to our success is our ability to adapt and change as this world unfolds. It is the ability to be Agile that allows us to be ready for the fast paced environment that we all live in. I run a podcast called Agile Living, An Entrepreneurs Journey that focused on because able to handle this changing work and I’m building a community of digital leaders who define their success by being able to adapt and keep up with the fast pace of the world today.
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About Agility CMS: Agility CMS is a Headless CMS focused on JAMStack solutions. Build faster, build easier.
Zoran Kovacevic
CEO of Ready
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About Ready: Ready app is the fastest way to pay at restaurants! Review the bill on your phone, press pay and cruise on out.
Vik Khanna
CEO of Boomerang Parental Control
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About Boomerang Parental Control: Our team of three dads are passionate about kids, education and technology. Helping guide parents with their family technology use.
Mary Clark
Chief Executive Officer of Agents Of Discovery
Mary Clark is the visionary Founder of Agents of Discovery, a gamified way of encouraging kids to be active, engaged, and to learn. With over 25 years of experience in education and technology, Clark serves as Agents of Discovery’s Chief Executive Officer. A dynamic leader, she has spearheaded a wide range of national initiatives in the public and private sectors, including the Canadian Centennial of Flight and the Trudeau Family Kokanee Glacier Alpine Campaign. In BC, she organized a huge linear park initiative- the Mission Creek Greenway- and catalyzed the reintroduction of the anatum Peregrine Falcon. Clark is a contributing author of two international science textbooks and a gifted public speaker who brings a fiery passion to her role at the helm of the Agents of Discovery team. Clark’s professional career began in the Edmonton Public School system, where, after winning the Louise Mckinney Scholarship at the University of Alberta, she was nominated for the Edwin Parr Teacher Award for best first-year teacher. In her 10 years with the Edmonton Public School system and subsequent career, Clark has continuously responded to gaps in complex systems with innovative solutions. In 1994, she led a city-wide campaign with Premier Ralph Klein to launch Kids Kottage in Edmonton, a respite care service to prevent child abuse and neglect. Clark has also worked alongside internationally renowned wildlife artist Robert Bateman for over a decade as the Director of the Get to Know Program, an initiative aimed at meaningfully engaging youth with the natural world through the creative arts. In addition, Clark has served for 20 years as the President of Morningstar Interactive, a company that develops educational digital media products. In 2015, Clark returned to school to earn her Master’s degree in Education, where her research explored the capacity of mobile educational gaming to improve the way students learn. Her findings underlie many of the strategies behind Agents of Discovery. Clark holds a B.Sc. (Honours) and B.Ed. from the University of Alberta, as well as a Master’s degree with a focus on Education Technology from the University of British Columbia.
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About Agents Of Discovery: An educational tech platform & app that gets kids active, engaged and learning about the world around them
Vincent Yang
Founder and CEO of H+ Technology
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About H+ Technology: H+ Technology is a digital display solutions company that develops customizable, gesture-based systems, and 3D projection displays.
Jerry Brace
CEO of Embraceware
CEO, Embraceware.
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About Embraceware: Embraceware develops games and applications for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Android.
Sean Herman
CEO of Kinzoo
Founder of Kinzoo, a video-sharing app where children can connect and parents can be sure they’re safe. Kids use Kinzoo to access the best of what technology has to offer — empowering creativity, connecting with friends and family, and learning about the things they love — within closed, managed communities. Entrepreneur, CFA Charterholder, and business leader with extensive experience ranging from founder and CEO to project manager and corporate finance analyst.
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About Kinzoo: Kinzoo is a new private messenger that turns screen time into family time.
Niall Conway
CEO / Lead UX Consultant of GOCITY Mobile Inc.
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About GOCITY Mobile Inc.: GOCITY.io is a digital strategy agency specializing in customer centric product design.
Mike Schmidt
CEO of iFramed (Canada Ltd.)
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About iFramed (Canada Ltd.): iFramed is a mobile application that enables its users to brand their content with personalized filters and frames.
Yury Buryanau
Founder & CEO of Frandom
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About Frandom: Two people in the same room blindfolded
Aida Viejo
Founder and CEO of Uxline
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About Uxline: Uxline offers remote user testing services and expert usability studies to help clients improve their website experiences.
Parveen Kaler
CEO of Smartful Studios
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About Smartful Studios: Mobile Application Development
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