Orna wins Canadian edition of The Global Tech Challenge with its cybersecurity platform

GoHub Ventures
3 min readNov 18, 2022

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From left to right, Inés Calabuig (ESG Head at GoHub); Martyn Gill (Orna president); Wendy Drukier (ambassador of Canada); Leigh Smout (Toronto World Trade Center); and Josie Scioli (deputy city manager of Toronto).

Seven months after landing in Canada with the fourth edition of The Global Tech Callenge (TGTC), GoHub Ventures has unveiled the name of the winning startup during the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona. Orna was born in November 2021 with the mission to build a wall against the growing phenomenon of cyber-attacks that many medium-sized companies suffer in the midst of the digital era.

Patricia Pastor, managing director of GoHub, recalled that the venture capital fund’s mission in investing in Canada was “to find the best deep-tech startup in the fields of industry, smart water, climate tech and smart cities. The goal has been achieved” thanks to Orna. The Toronto-based company has, in GoHub’s eyes, three ingredients for success: the panoramic vision to establish itself as the predominant platform for cyber-incident management, the right strategy to gain a foothold in both the North American and European markets, and a solid team that combines entrepreneurial experience and excellence in cybersecurity.

Logan Wolfe, Orna CEO, was grateful for GoHub’s backing. “With unprecedented geopolitical, industrial and environmental issues increasing, it’s more important than ever to empower disruptive startups hard at work solving them. Competition is the driver of innovation, and this challenge represents an excellent opportunity for quickly growing disruptors like Orna to not only put themselves on the world map for all to see, but to work together with enterprise sized organizations such as GoHub to solve these challenges in a very real, practical way together”.

On the other hand, Orna president Martyn Gill commented: “The European landscape isn’t too different from that of North America. The subject of energy security has risen in priority with significant global events in 2022 and strong cyber resilience along with the ability to respond to a cyber attack efficiently and effectively is paramount. Therefore, this collaboration between Spain and Canada will have great positive impact and I want ORNA Inc to be a part of the conversation and future cyber security collaboration efforts”.

The Canadian chapter is the fourth of The Global Tech Challenge after the incursions in New York, Barcelona and Helsinki. In Canada, GoHub and GoAigua -Global Omnium’s technology subsidiary in North America- have had the institutional support of the Toronto Region Board of Trade, the Government of Canada through its Embassy in Spain and the Government of Quebec.

Orna beat out more than 100 applicants and will now have the opportunity to receive up to three million euros in investment and will be able to develop a paid use case at Global Omnium, one of the top five water companies in the world. In addition, the startup will enjoy business development opportunities and potential partnerships.

Keys to The Global Water Challenge

The Global Water Challenge is one of GoHub’s flagship projects. It is based on the premise that industry processes must be optimized if resources are to be managed sustainably and more efficiently. Technology and digital transformation are pivotal to this goal.

For more information:

https://theglobalchallenge.tech/

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