These days there’s no shortage of additions to the C-suite. Creative job titles abound, and roles that didn’t exist a decade ago like chief experience officer or chief digital officer are becoming more common. The choice to add these positions to the decision-making table reflects the core value of these functions. Companies are realizing that …

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It’s no secret that retailers and CPGs have an enormous amount of data at their disposal. The question that is on every executive’s mind, however, is how to properly harness that data, and leverage it to drive informed and valuable business decision making. Knowing that big data is something that retail executives are thinking a lot …

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Have you heard of the Collision Conference? If you haven’t and you live in Toronto, and love tech, then you must be hiding under a rock because it’s kinda a big deal. For those of you who haven’t heard of Collision, it was coined the fastest growing tech conference in North America by Forbes, and …

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Everyone knows the feeling of guilt that comes from throwing away food from the home refrigerator that just never got eaten for one reason or another. After all, consumer food waste is a major problem in the United States. Piling up to nearly a quarter of all total municipal solid waste, more food reaches our nation’s …

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It’s not news that the state of retail is changing. The constraints inhibiting some retailers from keeping up with market disruptors like Amazon and Walmart are creating a tipping point in terms of leveraging AI to automate everything from inventory to promotional marketing. We hear a lot about AI, but it’s not always clear what …

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According to a recent report, 70% of all litter in the sea is plastic. While consumers’ plastic consumption is a clear culprit, grocery stores are also adding to this predicament with inventory overstock and shrink. When unsold grocery stock reaches its sell-by or expiration date, store managers must dispose of the waste. For example, in …

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For many of us, the most appealing factor about online shopping is the convenience. We’ve been able to purchase goods online and have them delivered to our homes for quite some time. As a result, there’s a certain level of experience we’ve come to expect. Now that we’re seeing many grocery retailers offer online ordering …

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Rubikloud HQ transformed into a luxurious event space to host the first event in our new Toronto office on August 16th. Tony van Marken, businessman and adventurer extraordinaire (who also happens to be one of Rubikloud’s investors from OTEAF), joined the Rubikrew, along with a few external partners, to share stories from his adventures climbing …

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The “retail apocalypse” and “the death of brick and mortar” are common phrases echoed in the industry as pressure mounts for enterprise retailers scrambling to compete with the likes of Amazon. As one of the FANG companies (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google), Amazon has passed the tipping point in its ability to collect trainable proprietary …

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It’s been an exciting 2018 and it’s only February! Today we announced that Rubikloud is adding 60 jobs in our Toronto office following our successful Series B round secured in early January, raising $37m USD. In our last blog post, I outlined our 3 major goals for the year: 1) Accelerate practical AI adoption for …

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Today we announced that Rubikloud has raised $37m USD in our Series B investment round. We are thrilled to have Intel Capital as the lead investor for this round, alongside investments from iNovia Capital and OTEAF. All three of these new investors, and our existing investors (Horizons Ventures and Access Industries), share in our vision …

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We are super excited to be chosen to host a workshop titled Workshop on Big Data & Data Science in Retail at the IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM), a top-tier research conference in data mining. The workshop will bring together academic researchers and industry professionals from all over the world to present and …

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Most of us remember childhood bedtime stories or amusing renditions of a night out with friends. These stories have helped shape who we are, and they reinforce our existing relationships. By telling stories of their own, startup businesses can create lasting impressions and personalized experiences to drive an impactful brand experience. In the highly competitive …

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An Open Letter to the Ontario Tech Community: I have been torn recently. The Ontario tech community – specifically the Toronto and KW corridor – has been getting a lot of well-deserved global press. See the CBC’s article about building our very own “Silicon Valley North”. The issue is that every time I read an article, …

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Yesterday we publicly announced our largest retail partnership to date. We are honoured and excited to partner with A.S Watson as their preferred vendor for a global roll out of machine learning applications. Over the past year, we have worked diligently with various leaders in the A.S Watson Group and have been impressed with how …

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We’re used to associating Google with the best. The cutting edge. However, this dominance has yet to assert itself  in the race to dominate cloud computing. A race currently being led by Amazon Web Services. In constructing the most valuable company ever, Google has amassed an unparalleled cloud stack, appealing to end users and developers alike. …

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As our lives become more reliant on digital platforms, marketing, and advertising necessary to support these “free” platforms becomes an ever increasing nuisance. There is over 198 million ad blocking users globally (https://blog.pagefair.com/2015/ad-blocking-report/). How do marketers and advertisers continue to make their messages relevant and timely without knowing what each individual wants to hear about …

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I’m sorry but the Chartered Accountant in me couldn’t resist the terrible accounting joke.  Rubikloud has decided to move out of our first office here at 111 Richmond (www.oneeleven.com) – Canada’s first community for data driven start-ups.  We were one of the first start-ups to join this community and have recently decided to move into …

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Let me begin by apologizing for my lack of posts the past few months. In my defense, things have been incredibly busy and Laura has done an excellent job of creating relevant and valuable content. December is going to be the Rubikloud “data run” month. Our entire team (including myself) will be halting new product …

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Tis the season for giving back and what better way to warm up the city during this cold front than a clothing drive? We have teamed up with startups across the city to collect housewares, small electronics, toys, and, of course, warm clothes, for the Oasis Clothing Bank. Unlike large corporations with large budgets, Oasis …

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It is without a doubt that the startup ecosystem in Canada is thriving. In 2013, three Canadian locations placed in the top 20 most active cities for startup growth- Toronto 8th, Vancouver 9th, and Waterloo 16th.

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It’s time to share the amazing work and progress the Rubikloud team made on our platform! Check out our new video here. Today Rubikloud is launching an end-to-end retail intelligence platform, named RUDI, that will transform the retail landscape forever. No longer will multi-channel retailers need expensive long-term multi-year Big Data projects. No longer will …

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What does $2.5 Billion dollars buy you these days? The Pan Am games are over and there is an unsettling feeling across Toronto and Southern Ontario about the outrageous price tag. We all know this money could have been spent fixing the Gardiner, extending the Subway or tackling a host of other city wide issues, …

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Start-ups often ignore Asia until much later on in their life cycle. I don’t necessarily agree with this strategy. When you are in an industry that is undefined and rapidly changing such as big data, the geography you target matters less than the industry or vertical. This article is our chance to share some real-life …

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Some events can be pulled together last minute with only a few days of frantic turn around. Locations can change and guest speakers can back out, but the show will go on. Conferences on the other hand need to be meticulously executed, with no details overlooked. The long-term preparation is easily the most difficult factor …

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Last week at Rubikloud we released version 1 of our RUDI platform…

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Everyone is talking about Shopify and Hootsuite, the elusive unicorns of our Canadian startup community. A “unicorn” in the tech industry refers to a startup company with a valuation of close to, or over $1 billion dollars.

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We have raised our Series A and are doubling the size of our team. Excuse my cliché but we need to cross the infamous chasm. We need to build a great technology company and we need to execute while watching over our shoulders for threats at every corner.

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Today marks a critical day for Rubikloud. We just announced the closing of a $7 million Series A round led by some very strategic and critical funding partners across the world. We’re thrilled to be working with such a great group of investors and entrepreneurs! I’m proud of our team for everything we have accomplished …

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  Retail Intelligence Platform Rubikloud Raises $7M in Series A Funding to  Support Global Demand Funding round enables Rubikloud to capitalize on opportunities in North America and Asia   Toronto, Ontario – January 19, 2015 – Rubikloud Technologies Inc. (@Rubikloud) announced today that it has raised $7 million in an oversubscribed Series A financing round, …

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2014 was the year for “Rubikloud Labs.” I use the word labs because we were iterating and trying many different things with our retail customers and partners. Some of it we scrapped and some of it we have productized. We have been so fortunate to work with such large retailers, it truly helped us shape a …

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I’ve never given too much thought to the keyboard I use, my laptop came with one that for obvious reasons seemed like the natural choice. It wasn’t until I started working at Rubikloud did I notice the variety of keyboard possibilities. Large and small, quiet and loud, number pads or not, keyboards evidently come in …

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Neil Laing is our Director of UI/UX and has seen the transformation that took companies from marketing magazines to websites, and mailing lists to email campaigns. He knows a lot about user-experience and creating brands, and he’s seen the obstacles technology has had to overcome to get us to where we are today. When Laing entered …

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In my last post I touched on the strong support system and available resources for our blooming startup communities in Canada. The rock-solid foundation we offer entrepreneurs is an easy competition to enter with Silicon Valley. Talent attraction however, is not. In recent years losing top talent to the USA has been a serious concern …

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Silicon Valley may be the first place that comes to mind when you think of tech startups, but when considering resources, financial support, and a welcoming atmosphere, Canada has been steadily putting itself on the map. The startup communities in cities such as Vancouver, Waterloo, Toronto,  Calgary and Montreal have proven to be a sought after …

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I think we can all agree costumes that require effort, intelligence and some technical know-how are more interesting than the average ‘sexy nurse’ costume you pick-up at the nearest pop-up shop. For all you nerds out there, here are some of the coolest technically advanced DIY Halloween costumes. You won’t find fish-nets or crop tops …

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Designing, building and marketing a product in the startup world is a very different process than that of a mature business. There are similarities, but the approach has to deviate from the norm for a  startup to succeed. Yes, a larger company can implement agile methodologies, short-term sprints and goal oriented product roadmaps, but startup …

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It’s been a year and a half since I started Rubikloud with Dan and Frank. As we gear up for probably the biggest push in our company’s history (product, customers, team), I wanted to share a few important lessons I have learned as a start-up CEO: 1) Spend 30% of your time focused on hiring. …

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This past January we set out to find the perfect cloud provider for our platform. In previous months we had been provided services from Amazon, and then eventually through the BizSpark program we were given a credit that allowed us to explore other options. With that credit we decided to go the Microsoft route and …

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We are pleased to announce that today Rubikloud officially made its way on to Joyent’s Partner Page. We are proudly dawning the top row spot under the “Data” column! Check it out at – http://www.joyent.com/partners Joyent is steadily becoming one of the major players in Cloud Infrastructure, and we are thrilled to be a part …

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For those of you who have been following Rubikloud we have always taken a pretty low key and “stealthy” approach towards our marketing and content. This was for a variety of reasons (busy working on product market fit, working with early customers, hiring, etc etc). While we are still heads down focused on product and …

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Last week I spent three days in the Valley as part of The C100’s 48 hours in the valley program. Normally when I’m in the valley, I’m either fund raising or working with customers. It was refreshing to  spend a few days absorbing the energy of fellow entrepreneurs and “relaxing” through sessions. This is a …

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Preamble:  Over the past month, we have been working really hard on our core messaging. Big Data and Analytics is a space with lots of buzzwords and we want to simplify that. Businesses don’t care about buzzwords. This is obviously an iterative process, but we’re getting closer. Post: It’s been a crazy week so far. …

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Let me begin by apologizing for the two month “MIA.” There really is no excuse, and our team is going to become better at producing regular content. Connecting with our target audiences is an important value for Rubikloud, so please consider this the official “re-launch” of our blog. So what have we been doing over …

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Rubikloud is hiring right now, but not just for normal engineers- for early employees. I was having a conversation last week with one of our angel investors and a good friend who’s had a front row seat to the creation of some of the most successful tech companies in the world (i.e Facebook, Palantir, etc). …

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Today we announced our seed round (see the details below). This post is our first chance to publicly talk about the round. I’m generally a direct guy, so this post will be no different. Rubikloud has always been very fortunate in two areas: We have co-founders who have worked together before and know each other …

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Over the weekend, I finally saw what a hackathon is all about. I observed the MaRS HackingHealth hackathon in Toronto on Saturday and watched in the full glory programmers and health professionals come up with inventive solutions to the inefficiencies of the health care system. It was a well organized event where participants used Sparkboard …

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Hello world and welcome to our blog! If you’re wondering why there are two welcome posts – this blog is being maintained by the two technical co-founders of Rubikloud Technologies. This blog will be where my colleague (Dan Theirl), and I (Frank Thomas) will document our thoughts and experiences as we navigate the world of …

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Hello Everyone, Thank you so much for visiting Rubikloud’s Official Blog.  You will never guess what I discovered yesterday.. we have the capacity to process over a 1 million events per second through our real-time engine and this is just the beginning as we begin the process of scaling our infrastructure.  Amazing how distributed computing …

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