{"id":504383,"date":"2026-02-28T03:04:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T03:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/504383\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T03:04:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T03:04:23","slug":"ottawa-makes-first-rdii-investments-in-ontario-with-15-million-for-cdl-defence-and-wolf-advanced-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/504383\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa makes first RDII investments in Ontario with $15 million for CDL Defence and Wolf Advanced Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Money will support CDL\u2019s defence accelerator and Wolf\u2019s high-performance computing systems.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>The federal government has revealed a pair of new Canadian defence technology investments.<\/p>\n<p>The feds have allocated up to nearly $7 million CAD in non-repayable funding to Toronto\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/creativedestructionlab.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">Creative Destruction Lab<\/a> (CDL) to support the delivery of its new defence accelerator and a more than $8-million repayable contribution (or zero-interest loan) to help Aurora-based defence supplier <a href=\"https:\/\/wolfadvancedtechnology.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">Wolf Advanced Technology<\/a> bolster its in-house production, inspection, and validation capabilities.<\/p>\n<p>CDL Defence supports startups with dual-use tech that directly addresses defence, national security, and critical infrastructure requirements.<\/p>\n<p>The $15-million in commitments will be delivered through FedDev Ontario as part of the $358-million <a href=\"https:\/\/betakit.com\/feds-unveil-358-million-initiative-to-bolster-defence-supply-chain\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">Regional Defence Investment Initiative<\/a> (RDII), which supports Canada\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/betakit.com\/feds-6-6-billion-defence-industrial-strategy-takes-aim-at-building-a-robust-canadian-defence-sector\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">new strategy<\/a> for shoring up its domestic defence industrial base and reducing the country\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/betakit.com\/the-world-has-changed-canadas-new-defence-industrial-strategy-aims-to-reduce-us-dependency\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">dependence on the US<\/a>. They mark the first two Ontario investments via the RDII.<\/p>\n<p>Minister of AI and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon announced the news yesterday from CDL\u2019s headquarters at the University of Toronto\u2019s Rotman School of Management. Solomon described investing in CDL Defence as \u201ca no-brainer,\u201d describing the organization as \u201cthe best of the best.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Solomon said on stage that CDL Defence \u201cwill give entrepreneurs access to mentorship, technical expertise, and connections with potential buyers and partners, and will help founders turn promising ideas into real-life solutions to support [Canada\u2019s] defence needs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>CDL\u2019s global <a href=\"https:\/\/creativedestructionlab.com\/streams\/defence\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">CDL Defence<\/a> accelerator stream aims to support startups with dual-use technology that directly addresses defence, national security, and critical infrastructure requirements. Through the initiative, which was <a href=\"https:\/\/betakit.com\/cdl-defence-vimy-forge-and-calian-ventures-launch-programs-to-boost-canadian-defence-tech\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">announced last fall<\/a>, CDL aims to support up to 25 defence companies annually.<\/p>\n<p>Sonia Sennik, CDL\u2019s CEO, said on stage that the program hopes to help participating firms build teams, fundraise, secure contracts, and integrate into national and global supply chains.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/betakit.com\/the-world-has-changed-canadas-new-defence-industrial-strategy-aims-to-reduce-us-dependency\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">\u201cThe world has changed\u201d: Canada\u2019s new Defence Industrial Strategy aims to reduce US dependency<\/a><\/p>\n<p>CDL Defence is currently being run in partnership with six of its locations across Canada and Europe: Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Halifax, Berlin, and Estonia. Each will contribute mentors and local networks and expertise, with in-person sessions timed to coincide with major international security forums.<\/p>\n<p>The free program is designed to support \u201cthe best science-based ventures building dual-use technologies, regardless of where they were founded.\u201d Its inaugural cohort, which is now underway, includes startups from Canada, France, Germany, and Finland that are developing autonomous systems, space infrastructure, energy resilience, and advanced sensing technologies for commercial markets and defence applications.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo attract the best mentors, operators, and domain experts in the world to engage deeply with Canadian companies, we need to convene the strongest ventures globally \u2026 When top-tier global ventures participate, it raises the level of conversation, attracts international expertise, and ensures Canadian founders are learning alongside\u2014and competing with\u2014the very best,\u201d a CDL spokesperson told BetaKit.<\/p>\n<p>Aurora-based Wolf, which was founded in 1999, develops rugged, high-performance embedded computing systems for aerospace and defence companies globally. Wolf plans to use this funding to help deliver sovereign defence components.<\/p>\n<p>Solomon said Wolf is \u201cgoing to build advanced production capabilities in-house, right here in Canada, with the IP here in Canada, to inspect and validate mission-critical electronic and mechanical systems\u201d with \u201cdefence-grade reliability.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Feature image courtesy Creative Destruction Lab.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Money will support CDL\u2019s defence accelerator and Wolf\u2019s high-performance computing systems. &#13; The federal government has revealed a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[15844,2043,49,48,201175,201176,201174,83432,78195,3234,51407,28784,905,20739,201172,88058,3302,201173],"class_list":["post-504383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-accelerator","tag-aurora","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cdl","tag-cdl-defence","tag-creative-destruction-lab","tag-defence-tech","tag-feddev-ontario","tag-funding","tag-government-of-canada","tag-govt","tag-ontario","tag-ottawa","tag-regional-defence-investment-initiative","tag-sonia-sennik","tag-toronto","tag-wolf-advanced-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504383","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=504383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}