Here are five startups founded by immigrant entrepreneurs that you should know about

Editor's Note

OBJ and Invest Ottawa have partnered to create this recurring feature that will feature up-and-coming tech startups in the nation’s capital.

Seismocode Inc.

Year Founded: 2021 in Turkey (Canadian entity incorporated in 2025)

Founder(s)/CEO: Serhat Tekebaş, founder and CEO

(Sponsored)

Number of Employees: Five to seven 

Office Location: Hybrid

Product Description: Cloud-based SaaS platform delivering passive seismic data acquisition, analysis and subsurface modelling to support pre-drilling decisions in exploration and geotechnical projects.

Target Customers: Mining, oil and gas and geothermal exploration companies requiring subsurface modelling before drilling, and construction and geotechnical firms performing soil classification studies.

Competitive Differentiator: A project-based, cloud platform dedicated to passive seismic methods, enabling faster subsurface modelling, reduced field costs and remote collaboration before drilling.

Traction or Notable Milestone: Achieved a first POC sale within three months of founding, secured pre-seed investment, won Invest Ottawa’s IO Ignition Pitch Finale (Cohort 28), and initiated POC discussions with Canadian mining companies.

Crewd Inc.

Year Founded: 2025

Founder(s)/CEO: Johny Camara (co-founder and CEO), Hashir Imam (co-founder and COO) and Marco Tan (co-founder and CTO)

Number of Employees: Three

Office Location: Remote

Product Description: Crewd. helps construction contractors share or gain instant access to a pipeline of idle workers from trade firms, handling matching, communication and team management.

Target Customers: Construction SMEs and contractors, specifically those seeking reliable, vetted, on-demand labour for projects, and trades firms looking to monetize their “benched” workforce during downtime.

Competitive Differentiator: The trades firms are our inventory, providing zero-cost recruitment and reliable talent. Additionally, our AI agent allows contractors to request and manage staff without an app.

Traction or Notable Milestone: Eleven companies onboarded, seven using us as their go-to platform for their staffing needs, and four staff suppliers; winner of the Invest Ottawa Immigrant Catalyst Program Pitch Competition ($10,000 grant).

O Nanotech

Year Founded: 2023

Founder(s)/CEO: Keroles Riad

Number of Employees: Two

Office Location: 7 Bayview Station Rd., Ottawa

Product Description: We produce nanomaterials, including metal oxide quantum dots. These metal oxides include a variety of critical minerals such as titanium, copper, zinc and tin.

Target Customers: OEMs and research institutions working on catalysis, clean energy, biofuels and emissions reduction systems.

Competitive Differentiator: Orders of magnitude lower cost enabled by flame-synthesis, while maintaining performance comparable to or exceeding incumbent nanoparticles made with wet-chemistry techniques.

Traction or Notable Milestone: We recently launched our public e-commerce site (Onanotech.ca). We secured approximately $250,000 in scholarship funding. Secured a sub-contractor manufacturer agreement to produce our nanomaterials at larger scales. We filed our first patent application on the use of flame-made quantum dots as catalysts in epoxy photopolymerization. In September, we onboarded our first full-time employee who will be in charge of fulfilling orders, conducting market research and initiating R&D projects.

Beamra

Year Founded: 2024

Founder(s)/CEO: Mahmoud Al Jaroud, Imad Ibrahim

Number of Employees: 12

Office Location: Ottawa 

Product Description: AI enterprise strategy platform that helps organizations clarify goals, map initiatives and execute strategies using integrated business tools.

Target Customers: Enterprises, government teams and mid‑size organizations seeking clarity, alignment and AI‑driven strategic planning across digital transformation, operations and customer experience.

Competitive Differentiator: Comprehensive, structured and consultant‑friendly platform that replaces scattered tools and unstructured data with one unified system, reducing cost and saving time.

Traction or Notable Milestone: Rapid early traction with 50-plus clients, $200,000 in revenue in six months and 20 active partnerships with leading consulting firms worldwide.

DocSplain AI Doctor Inc.

Year Founded: 2023

Founder(s): Hamid Shirdastian, co-founder and CEO, Mohsen Sadi, co-founder and CTO

Number of Employees: Early-stage team

Office Location: 7 Bayview Station Rd., Ottawa

Product Description: An AI layer on top of electronic medical records that supports physicians across the full patient journey, reduces administrative work and replaces fragmented EMR workflows. 

Target Customers: Small and mid-sized primary care clinics, family physicians and care teams operating in resource-constrained health-care environments.

Competitive Differentiator: Workflow-first and AI-native, designed for easy adoption and immediate impact by moving beyond rigid data entry toward clinical reasoning and continuity of care. 

Traction or Notable Milestone: Over 80,000 patient visits supported and more than $200,000 in revenue and pre-purchases as of December 2025; listed on Supply Ontario’s Vendor of Record for AI Scribe; active pilots with Canadian clinics; advanced discussions with EMR ecosystem partners.

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