For Immediate Release

Ottawa, ON — September 23, 2025 — Ottawa’s innovation ecosystem is gaining new momentum with the launch of Invest Ottawa’s Bayview BetaWorks, a new living lab at Bayview Yards that helps founders test ideas, validate technologies with real users and environments, and bring solutions to market faster. By providing access to real users and live environments, Bayview BetaWorks reduces risk and accelerates commercialization.

Located on the cusp of Ottawa’s downtown core at an LRT station and the neighbouring LeBreton Flats development, and with strong connections to key partners like Hub 350 in Kanata North Tech Park and all local post-secondary institutions, it aims to add new collaborative opportunity, capabilities and capacity to Ottawa’s innovation ecosystem.

Bayview BetaWorks builds on pilot projects undertaken by resident companies and Invest Ottawa over the last few years and scales Bayview Yards itself into a more fulsome testbed. Entrepreneurs can pilot new apps, tools, and hardware directly within the workflows of the innovators, staff, and community who use the building every day. From streamlining operations to testing automation systems, founders gain feedback under live, complex conditions that mirror the challenges of scaling in the real world.

Startup failure often comes down to gaps in validation. According to CB Insights, 62% of startup failures are tied to lack of market need (35%), flawed business models (19%), or poor products (8%). By bringing all these capabilities under one roof, Bayview BetaWorks addresses these frequent challenges faced by entrepreneurs — from validating product-market fit to building investor confidence in a competitive market.

“Bayview BetaWorks is more than a program. It’s a pathway to commercialization. By giving founders the opportunity to test, demonstrate and refine their solutions with prospective customers in real-world environments, we can help them overcome one of the biggest hurdles: proving their technology works.,” Sonya Shorey, CEO and President, Invest Ottawa, “This enhances market and investor-readiness, fuels stronger companies, and brings Canadian innovation to market faster, creating jobs and lasting economic impact. We are excited to help more startups and scaleups validate their solutions with early adopters and win the customers they need to grow and succeed.”

Bayview BetaWorks builds on the outcomes and impact achieved by Area X.O, the multi-sectoral R&D complex for emerging technologies and ITB-certified NATO DIANA Test Centre founded and launched by Invest Ottawa in 2019.

Homegrown innovators and founders and early-stage clients such as The Growcer, Hasty Tasty, Plantaform, JPlug, and Box of Life helped validate the BetaWorks concept by testing their technologies in this real-world environment, providing proof of its value to founders across sectors. Together, these organizations are tackling challenges across cleantech, healthtech, food systems, and next-generation networking, while helping founders validate solutions in real-world conditions. This network of innovators not only strengthens the competitiveness of Canadian industry, but also fosters the development of new intellectual property, scalable businesses, and technologies that can make a global impact.

“Piloting our software in a real-world environment like Bayview Yards, especially in a heritage-designated building, was transformative for JPlug. The Bayview BetaWorks program pilot gave us the opportunity to test under complex, real-life conditions, gather feedback that truly mattered, and refine our solution in ways that wouldn’t have been possible in a closed environment,” said Jorge Pantoja, Founder of JPlug.  “That experience not only accelerated our product development, it also built investor confidence and positioned us one step closer to transforming the EV charging industry.”

Bayview BetaWorks accelerates startup success by offering:

• Live testing environments where founders engage with real users
• Proof-of-concept pilots to gather essential data and insights
• Live demonstration opportunities to showcase solutions to clients, investors, and partners
• A vibrant innovation ecosystem that provides mentorship, collaboration, and market connections

“Innovation can’t grow in isolation. Entrepreneurs need a community where ideas meet feedback, prototypes meet users, and validation meets traction,” said Lindsey Fair, Vice President, Bayview Impact, Invest Ottawa. “Bayview BetaWorks creates that environment, helping founders turn promising concepts into viable solutions that are more likely to succeed and scale globally.”

With BetaWorks, Invest Ottawa brings these opportunities into the heart of the city while fostering even stronger collaboration across the region. Bayview Yards now a full active proving ground with onsite, virtual and hybrid capabilities for workplace, digital, and urban innovations. Together, Area X.O and Bayview BetaWorks provide entrepreneurs with a connected network of real-world environments that span drone and advanced robotics facilities, defence and security zones and an innovation farm to private smart mobility test tracks and a dynamic downtown innovation hub and testbed.

 

Media contact:
Lindsey Fair – Vice President, Marketing and Bayview Impact
Invest Ottawa, Area X.O and Bayview Yards
613.857.7779
[email protected]

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About Invest Ottawa

Invest Ottawa is the lead economic development agency for knowledge-based industries in Canada’s Capital Region, facilitating economic growth and job creation in Ottawa. Guided by a vision to help realize Ottawa’s full potential as a globally recognized, innovative, inclusive, and future-ready city, Invest Ottawa delivers venture development, global expansion and talent programs and services that catalyze the growth and success of entrepreneurs and firms.

These include small business training, mentorship, acceleration for technology firms, foreign business and investment attraction, local business retention and expansion in targeted sectors, commercialization and marketing Ottawa’s diversified economy and high quality of life. Invest Ottawa is also the manager of Bayview Yards, Ottawa’s innovation hub and one-stop business acceleration shop, and founder and operator of Area X.O, the R&D complex for next-gen smart mobility, autonomy, and connectivity technologies. Since 2017, Invest Ottawa has supported and delivered $3.7 billion in GDP impact, 29,343 jobs, and $622 million in government revenues.

www.investottawa.ca

bayviewyards.org