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Welcome to this week’s Sunday Digest, brought to you by Acetech. In this issue, meet the sports and hardware tech firm that's shipped 1,000 products, a photographer marketplace that's doing business globally, and a local food processor that's innovating how we eat chickpeas. Have a great day. We'll see you again Thursday.

MeepMeep ships 1,000 units of its smart disc golf tracker

Last week, we spotlighted MeepMeep, a local smart disc golf accessories hardware startup, as part of a feature on women-led businesses. This week, we’re double-clicking on it. 

On July 19th, the company announced that it's successfully shipped over 1,000 pre-orders for its first product: a stick-on, smartphone-connected tracker device to help disc golfers save time by finding lost discs faster. 

MeepMeep was founded by University of Victoria grads Eve Olynyk (CEO) and Simon Park in 2020 and is already an eight-person team.

MeepMeep used crowdfunding to fund its first production run, and this recent announcement comes as the 2022 Douglas 10 to Watch winner prepares to scale and enter new markets and channels to get the product in the hands of disc golfers around the world.

Olynyk sees her company as part of Victoria’s growing tech scene, but also believes it's unique because it manufactures physical goods. “While Greater Victoria’s software tech success story has long been discussed, we’re only recently seeing the hardware space grow and we’re incredibly proud to be one of the companies taking part in this moment,” she explained. 

“Growing up playing disc golf in the world-class courses we have here on the West Coast, I’ve always loved the sport and now with the explosion of disc golf, particularly during the pandemic, there has never been a more exciting time to be in this space.”

Read more about MeepMeep.

📰 Recent Victoria tech headlines

Female founder: Nicole Smith is the founder and CEO of Flytographer, a global marketplace that connects people with hand-picked local photographers for fun, one-hour photo shoots. She recently joined the Fundraising Stories with Female Founders podcast. Listen now.

Food innovation: Victoria-based Humble and Frank Foods Ltd., InnovoPro and The Star Group received $1.4 million from the federal government to research and test chickpea ingredients and proteins in a variety of consumer-ready plant-based food products. The funding is from Protein Industries Canada, which is part of the national innovation superclusters program.

SPONSORED

Acetech member spotlight: Helm Operations

Helm Operations’ mission is to bring the power of technology to the maritime industry. Connecting your maintenance, compliance, personnel, and operations all in one system to improve vessel safety and performance. 

Helm has been in Victoria since 1999, and while most of their staff are local, they operate globally. Their mission critical solution is in use by the companies and crew moving more than 90% of the world’s cargo.

🕴️ Tech jobs of the week

Find your next career:

• Embedded Software Developer/Firmware Engineer at Quester Tangent

• System Solution Analyst (Workday) at BC Assessment

• Senior Data Architect and Data Scientist at BC Public Service

Hiring in Victoria? Reply to this email and let us know! 

🔎 Weekly tech spotlight: Priologic

Priologic Software Inc. is a software development company focused on serving large enterprise companies with their development needs. Founded in 2004, the Victoria-based firm works on large-scale, web and mobile business application development projects. Learn more.

📅 Upcoming events

July 26: Startup Job Fair Online: Talent Registration

July 28: Unthinkable Thursday - Monthly Event

July 28: eCommerce in 2022 and Beyond!

August 18: Pitch on a Luxury Yacht

Have an upcoming event? Reply to let us know.