Calian Group Ltd.
Calian Ventures designed to test, validate and scale innovative SME ideas for the Canadian Armed Forces
OTTAWA, Ontario, Sept. 23, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Calian Group Ltd. (TSX: CGY), a trusted provider of mission-critical solutions for defence, space, healthcare and other critical infrastructure sectors, announced today the launch of Calian Ventures, a groundbreaking initiative helping Canada’s small to mid-sized enterprise (SMEs) and partners scale proven Canadian defence solutions into sovereign capabilities to meet the evolving needs of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF).
“Today we are proud to launch Calian Ventures, Canada’s defence innovation orchestrator,” said Chris Pogue, President Defence and Space, Calian. “By leveraging Calian’s engineering experience, integrated defence solutions and trusted CAF relationships, we will work with partners to turn Canadian solutions into Canadian defence capabilities to help build Canada’s defence industrial base — that’s what Calian Ventures is all about.”
Working with Canadian partners including academia, financial institutions, and business support organizations, Calian Ventures will initially focus on three priority streams: command and control decision support systems, autonomous systems and space resource orchestration. SMEs will work with Calian and its partners to help test, validate and scale their technologies into Canadian and allied procurements while maintaining their intellectual property.
“By orchestrating collaboration between SMEs, the CAF, and partners, Calian Ventures provides SMEs with critical access to expertise, integration environments, and pathways to procurement – accelerating growth, removing barriers and driving innovation,” Pogue added. “This is a missing component of Canada’s defence industrial ecosystem and is needed now—more than ever—as Canada seeks to surge defence spending and reduce defence industrial dependence on other nations.”
According to the State of Canada’s Defence Industry 2024 report, Canada’s defence industrial base includes 585 firms generating $14.3 billion in revenue and supporting over 81,000 jobs. More than 85% of these companies are SMEs with fewer than 250 employees. These firms are the drivers of innovation yet often face challenges scaling solutions into large programs for the CAF. Federal initiatives such as the Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program have funded over 600 innovation projects since 2018, engaging hundreds of SMEs and sparking promising technologies. Calian Ventures is designed to complement and build on the successes of programs like IDEaS by providing SMEs with additional pathways to test, validate and scale their solutions into operational capabilities for the CAF and allied markets.