Altis Recruitment & Technology

Play Food & Wine is closing its doors in early January after 17 years of business. Photo from Instagram.

Play Food & Wine to end 17-year run in ByWard Market in January

Ottawa, Top Stories

Play Food & Wine is closing its doors in the ByWard Market after 17 years in early January, owner Stephen Beckta announced on social media

Get our email newsletters

Get up-to-date news about the companies, people and issues that impact businesses in Ottawa and beyond.

The Latest

Two highrises and a seniors residence proposed for Carling Ave. near Altea Ottawa

Wayne Liko has worked with the feds for years. He sees one thing missing from the RTO debate

Arcadia MapleLeaf Soccer joins local ownership of Ottawa Rapid as majority owner

How Westboro’s female entrepreneurs are making it an attractive destination to live, work and play

Video

Ottawa’s AI scene is evolving. Early momentum was created by companies such as Solink, founded by Mike Matta, which applied computer vision to retail analytics, and Ranovus, led by Hany Mussad, which develops the optical hardware necessary for high-capacity AI data centres. Subsequent growth was driven by firms such as MindBridge, co-founded by Solon Angel and Eli Fathi, and BluWave-ai, led by Devashish Paul, which targeted specific industrial applications in financial auditing and energy grid management.

A new AI player is garnering international attention. Backboard.io is developing a memory-native API designed to manage long-term context in large language models. In January 2026, the company closed a pre-seed funding round led by Mistral Venture Partners, with participation from N49P, Garage Capital, and Developer Capital.

In this episode of Techopia Live, OBJ publisher Michael Curran speaks to Rob Imbeault, the founder and CEO of Backboard.io. Having already co-founded tech unicorn Assent, Imbeault is now in the CEO seat and predicting big things to come.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
02:56 Introducing Rob Imbeault
14:00 Sponsor Segment
22:27 Building a Better Working World
24:03 Techopia Sponsors
24:43 Closing and What’s Ahead at OBJ

For more on Ottawa’s tech and innovation scene, visit https://obj.ca/techopia.

Subscribe to Techopia’s weekly newsletter here: https://obj121.activehosted.com/f/5

Techopia Live: Imbeault is back with Backboard.io | Episode 295

OBJ360

Sponsored

Local businesses face hiring obstacles due to immigration pullback, flawed screening

Ottawa businesses critically important to ending youth homelessness across the city

How The Ottawa Hospital uses AI tools to boost health outcomes and streamline clinical efficiency

EXPERT BLOGS

View All | Submit an Expert Blog

Film smarter: the competitive advantage of shooting in Pembroke

Kathleen Barr

The federal downsizing effect: Risk, resilience and Ottawa real estate

Charles Sezlik

Sueling Ching, Ottawa Board of Trade

Building Canada’s Defence Innovation Hub

Sueling Ching

EVENTS

View All | Submit an Event