Robotic hands take hold of Vancouver

👋 It’s week two of our supporter drive and we’ve reached 15% of our goal, thanks to our loyal readers. We hope you’ll join them today! 

We need you to help, and we need your support now. We need at least 200 new members by March 21 to keep pushing forward or, at least, keep our head above water. Please consider supporting us — it’s only $2 a week.

🗞️ This week, America is still influencing Vancouver news. A number of local execs have signed an open letter condemning the purge of DEI initiatives from Canadian businesses, while governments and industry organizations are writing easier pathways for you to build a bigger Canadian customer base (scroll down to our “in other news” section).

Meanwhile, we counted five funding rounds this week from Vancouver companies, the biggest totalling $12.5 million. That’s great news, especially given our article this week on the state of VC in B.C., which pointed out that last year was…not great for startups. Plus, read on to see a weirdly large amount of news about robotic hands, and a big local debate over using AI in job application screening questions.

-Kate Wilson, managing editor