{"id":250918,"date":"2025-10-30T21:30:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T21:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/250918\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T21:30:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T21:30:12","slug":"from-a-wildfire-protection-kit-to-a-ticket-purchasing-platform-this-is-what-the-top-growing-companies-in-alberta-and-b-c-are-creating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/250918\/","title":{"rendered":"From a wildfire protection kit to a ticket-purchasing platform, this is what the top growing companies in Alberta and B.C. are creating"},"content":{"rendered":"

For seven years, Report on Business magazine has been ranking Canada\u2019s Top Growing Companies, measuring businesses on three-year revenue growth. Now, we\u2019re launching two inaugural provincial rankings, for British Columbia and Alberta. <\/p>\n

Alberta: Average growth 2,896%; median 171%; average revenue $126-million<\/p>\n

British Columbia: Average growth 614%; median 182%; average revenue $65-million<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Randy Cowling, President of WASP Wildfire, surrounded by wildfire protection equipment.Emily Heather\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

No. 15 (B.C.) <\/p>\n

Wasp Wildfire (Kelowna, B.C.)<\/p>\n

3-Year Growth: 393%<\/p>\n

At first glance, the home protection kits offered by Kelowna, B.C.-based Wasp Wildfire look like little more than a sprinkler on a chip clip attached to a garden hose. On closer inspection, however, you\u2019ll see that it\u2019s an agricultural-grade sprinkler meant to conserve water, the clip is made of high-quality plastic that can withstand the same heat as aluminum, and the hose is a lay-flat model made of the same materials fire departments use. The made-in-Canada kit is simple, yes, but not shoddy. And simple is good in a crisis.<\/p>\n

The kits came out of president Randy Cowling (a lifelong entrepreneur) and Darrell Pyke (an experienced logger), who\u2019d been working together on products for use in the creation of fire breaks often used to halt the spread of wildfires. During one meeting, a senior B.C. Wildfire Service officer asked for a pivot: \u201cCan you figure out a way for us to get sprinklers on rooftops without our guys having to climb up in the middle of the night to nail them in?\u201d <\/p>\n

After much tinkering, Pyke tapped into a solution: a lightweight device that could be hoisted using a stick or pole, and clipped on a gutter like a Christmas light. They took a prototype back to B.C. Wildfire, which loved it\u2014especially the speed, which matters when you\u2019re rushing to rig up hundreds of structures in a wildfire\u2019s path. Cowling sold 30 units in the room, swore his new client to secrecy, applied for patents (which the company now holds in Canada and the U.S., and which are pending worldwide) and began building out a business plan.<\/p>\n

That was 2014. As the need for wildfire protection has intensified, so has demand for Wasp\u2019s kits\u2014and its sales channels have evolved accordingly. Civilians can buy a kit on the Wasp website, on Amazon and at major retailers. Local fire departments and governments can buy them wholesale, then choose to sell them at cost or at a premium as a fundraiser, or give them away. And in the U.S., where the company is experiencing significant growth, the strategy is slightly different: Insurance companies are a major customer as they attempt to protect policyholders from an increasingly flammable actuarial reality.<\/p>\n

By streamlining the stressful business of emergency response and offering an accessible bit of reassurance for homeowners, Wasp Wildfire is chipping away at one of humanity\u2019s most pervasive and escalating natural threats. \u201cOur whole product line has expanded around these gutter-mount brackets,\u201d says Cowling, pointing to the pumps and trailers the company now provides to emergency response teams. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve grown with that, as well.\u201d \/D.A.<\/p>\n

No. 2 (B.C.)<\/p>\n

Veritree (Vancouver)<\/p>\n

3-Year Growth: 5,390%<\/p>\n

Derrick Emsley has a thing about trees. His first job out of university was a carbon offsets outfit he started at a tree farm in Saskatchewan. In 2012, he, his brother Kalen, their cousin Stephen Emsley and their buddy David Luba launched another business, the cult-favourite eco-apparel brand tentree, with a mission to plant, well, 10 trees for every item sold. (The running tally now tops 105 million.) And with his latest venture, Vancouver-based veritree, he and his team are using technology to scale his arboreal ambitions in an exponential way.<\/p>\n

At root, veritree operates a climate-tech platform that helps businesses verify, track, measure and expand their investments in nature restoration. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to build the infrastructure to power investment in global reforestation,\u201d Emsley says. It works by bridging the data gap between those who plant trees (and may excel at getting saplings in the ground but often struggle to document the process) and the organizations bankrolling the endeavour (which increasingly need transparent, auditable information about what has been done and where). <\/p>\n

Veritree started as a solution to a tentree problem. \u201cWe wanted to be able to prove that if we said a tree was planted, it actually got planted,\u201d Emsley says. \u201cThere really wasn\u2019t a solution that would allow us to confidently collect, manage, audit and verify that data coming, so we built it.\u201d <\/p>\n

It was a tricky job. Nature is a famously complicated thing to quantify and standardize: The ecosystem benefits that come from planting a sapling in the mangroves of Brazil are wildly different than on a wildfire-scorched slope in B.C, for example. \u201cOur challenge was in building a technology that follows the workflow of restoration, but is fluid and dynamic enough to be applicable in a variety of nature-based use cases,\u201d Emsley says. <\/p>\n

But over time, the team built a tool that worked. Word got around, and other organizations began asking to try it themselves. That\u2019s when Emsley began to see some growth potential.<\/p>\n

At the start of 2022, Emsley, Stephen and Luba spun veritree out as an independent business. The team\u2019s tentree bonafides gave them quick credibility, and the mission met the moment, as enterprises sought ways to prove no greenwashing was afoot. It\u2019s been a dizzying growth story ever since. Global corporations\u2014including Telus, BMO and Samsung\u2014now use the platform. Veritree\u2019s goal is to be responsible for one billion new trees by 2030; Emsley thinks they\u2019ll hit it sooner.<\/p>\n

Emsley acknowledges that amid the current ESG backlash, it\u2019s a tough moment to sell do-gooderism for its own sake. Thankfully, that\u2019s not the business he\u2019s in. Veritree quantifies the outputs that come from every tree planted\u2014from carbon captured to jobs created\u2014and supports it all with photos, videos and regular updates. In essence, it turns good intentions into measurable, annual-report-worthy deliverables. <\/p>\n

Nearly two decades in, Emsley thinks about impact a lot. \u201cMy first company was a tree farm in Saskatchewan. Tentree allowed us to plant thousands of tree farms. Veritree allows us to create thousands of tentrees,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a different point of leverage for how we create impact. It\u2019s an exponential opportunity to drive change.\u201d \/D.A.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A suction cup attaches to a mushroom as 4AG Robotics demonstrates its mushroom-picking robot in Salmon Arm, B.C.Marissa Tiel \/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

No. 9 (B.C.)<\/p>\n

4AG Robotics (Salmon Arm, B.C.)<\/p>\n

3-Year Growth +1,143% <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing about mushrooms: They\u2019re delicious. They\u2019re nutritious. They\u2019re wildly\u2014and increasingly\u2014popular. And they\u2019re a pain in the butt to cultivate. They grow fast\u2014about 4% per hour. They\u2019re finicky, prone to bruising and mushing. They must be harvested every day, sometimes around the clock, which involves non-stop climbing, reaching and bending. <\/p>\n

Enter Salmon Arm, B.C.-based 4AG Robotics, which is aiming to solve the mushroom paradox by replacing many human hands with a few big, hyper-intelligent robotic ones. 4AG, formerly known as TechBrew Robotics, has in recent years evolved from a custom contract engineer into a product-based growing concern, with fungi farming firmly in its crosshairs.<\/p>\n

No one expected a straightforward pivot. \u201cThere\u2019s a very deep graveyard of companies who\u2019ve tried and failed,\u201d says Sean O\u2019Connor, who joined as CEO in 2023 from Conexus Credit Union, where he led the organization\u2019s agtech venture capital arms. But the 4AG team was talented and keen, and they knew what mushroom farmers needed: something reliable and efficient that could be retrofitted into the barns they\u2019d already invested millions in. <\/p>\n

After an intense burst of R&D, the team built a prototype and persuaded a few Lower Mainland farms to give it a go in exchange for some favourable terms. This, O\u2019Connor says, proved invaluable. One example: 4AG robots use a suction cup to coax mushrooms from their growing racks. In the company\u2019s test facility, they worked beautifully. They did on the farms, too\u2014until the harvest moved to cold storage, when they started sporting hickey-like blemishes. So the team developed a softer cup that distributes suction more evenly, and presto\u2014bye-bye bruises. \u201cYou have to get in a real environment as fast as possible,\u201d O\u2019Connor says. \u201cYou can spend so much time testing in your creative environment, and it is just not indicative of the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n

This iterative process helped 4AG land on its hero robot, more than 50 of which have now been sold on three continents. (Geographic diversification is prudent when you\u2019re selling six-figure machines in a trade war.) It also equipped 4AG with muscle memory to pivot fast, which will come in handy: In July, the company secured $40 million in capital to feed its next growth phase. \u201cWe are the first mover on a global basis in this space, and we want to capture that advantage as quickly as possible,\u201d O\u2019Connor says. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to build in a way that gives us the ability to take a punch and keep on going.\u201d \/D.A.<\/p>\n

No. 10 (Alta.)<\/p>\n

Showpass (Calgary)<\/p>\n

3-Year Growth: 271%<\/p>\n

Getting tickets is generally not regarded as an enjoyable part of the event experience. If anything, consumers view ticketing services with no particular favour. But that\u2019s something Lucas McCarthy, CEO of the Calgary-based ticketing company Showpass, wants to change. \u201cWe want the ticketing experience to be an extension of the experience artists and organizers work so hard to create,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

To that end, presciently understanding that hidden fees do not a happy consumer make, Showpass embraced an all-in-one fee structure well before legislation to that effect was passed in the U.S. (Canada is planning a similar rule). And while major players tend to focus on concerts, Showpass wants to be the platform you interact with every week. From shows of big-name artists to your local museum (or corn maze, whatever floats your boat), Showpass\u2019s technology was designed to accommodate virtually any event.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s paying off. Showpass is the largest independent ticketer in North America, and in the past three years, has doubled the size of its team\u2014no small feat, given the pandemic. The result of that growth is supercharged innovation and product development. For instance, instead of forcing buyers to reach a merch quota before they can score a ticket to a popular concert, Showpass introduced more creative solutions\u2014like giving access to users with the most Spotify listening hours for a given artist. Finally, a well-deserved reward for listening to the same album 200 times. \/L.A.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For seven years, Report on Business magazine has been ranking Canada\u2019s Top Growing Companies, measuring businesses on three-year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,2922,66],"class_list":["post-250918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-noastack","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}