Budget 2025 has formally kickstarted a national defence tech push, with roughly $81 billion in new funding for the Canadian Armed Forces and a dedicated $6.6 billion Defence Industrial Strategy meant to grow a domestic defence industrial base. Layered on top is a new Buy Canadian policy, the forthcoming Defence Industrial Strategy, and BOREALIS (a new bureau to build sovereign AI and quantum tools for defence). For founders, this isn’t just macro policy. It’s a demand signal. At this years SAAS NORTH, Dominion Dynamics founder & CEO Eliot Pence joined Douglas Soltys, Founder & Editor-in-Chief at BetaKit, to unpack what this shift means for Canadian builders.

With the federal budget now cleared to move forward (and Canada avoiding a destabilizing political reset) the focus has shifted firmly toward implementation. At SAAS NORTH 2025, Evan Solomon, Canada’s first Minister of AI and Digital Innovation, joined C100 Executive Director Michael Buhr for a wide-ranging conversation about what this moment means. Solomon’s message was unmistakable: Canada intends to move from being the birthplace of AI ideas to the home of globally scaled AI companies.

AI is changing the way modern companies think about customer experience and how they build for scale. Ahead of her SAAS NORTH 2025 session, From CX to AI Agents: How Modern Companies Are Reimagining Customer Experience, Jo Lai, HTS’ SVP of AI Solutions and Customer Experience, shared how the company is redefining what great customer experience looks like in the AI era and what SaaS leaders can take from their approach.

The growth strategies that fueled SaaS in the 2010s and early 2020s no longer deliver the same results. Attribution dashboards are increasingly unreliable, paid ads are less efficient, and customers no longer want to be followed around the internet. Sarah Stockdale, founder of Growclass and one of Canada’s most trusted growth voices, took stage at SAAS NORTH recently to explain why. Her message then was clear: whisper marketing is the future.

Jason Smith, CEO & Co-Founder of Klue, has built and scaled five startups over the past 25 years. From the dot-com era to the SaaS boom and now the AI age, he’s seen how markets evolve and how quickly competitive dynamics shift. At SAAS NORTH, Jason warned founders about a risk that cuts across every cycle: the competitive revenue gap (the share of pipeline lost directly to competitors). Too few SaaS companies track it, and the result is millions in lost revenue that could otherwise be won.

SaaS leaders often get caught in the noise of market shifts, AI waves, interest rate cycles, or the latest funding trends. But as Louis Têtu, CEO & Chairman of Coveo, reminded the SAAS NORTH audience: fundamentals always win. Louis has scaled three companies to unicorn status. His vantage point is shaped by decades of SaaS cycles, from the dot-com boom and bust to today’s AI-native economy. What stands out is how consistent the winning strategies are, regardless of the macro environment.

Asia Orangio helped a SaaS company 10x its revenue, without adding more marketing spend. Her approach? A deceptively simple, three-step process that puts your customer at the center of every growth decision. Keep reading to learn how this framework continues to deliver results in today’s market and why it might be exactly what your SaaS business needs right now.

At SAAS NORTH 2023, Peter Carrescia shared a founder story that revealed just how seasoned operators can build with urgency, clarity, and purpose. After Wave, Peter could have stepped back. Instead, a conversation with Kirk Simpson sparked an idea that became goConfirm, a startup now tackling one of the internet’s biggest trust gaps. Keep reading to see how they went from concept to launch and what SaaS founders can learn from the journey.

Simon De Baene built a $100M+ SaaS company by focusing on what most overlook: real problems, simple products, and strategic patience. If you're growing a SaaS business without a roadmap, this journey might be exactly what you need to hear.