TechPoutine: The Ten-Year Overnight Success Behind Eli Health
Recorded live at Startupfest, this episode of Tech Poutine explores what it really takes to transform breakthrough research into a successful health technology company.
Marina Pavlović Rivas, co-founder and CEO of Eli Health, joins Ian Jeffrey, Nectarios Economakis and Catherine Ouellet-Dupuis to share the remarkable journey behind Eli's instant, saliva-based hormone-monitoring technology.
Marina explains how a personal frustration with the lack of accessible hormonal data became an ambitious company operating at the intersection of women's health, artificial intelligence, hardware, life sciences and consumer health. She discusses the decision to build Eli's laboratory, intellectual property and manufacturing capabilities internally—and the patience required to develop a product where moving quickly must never come at the expense of scientific rigour.
The conversation also covers the challenges of raising capital for FemTech and hard technology, communicating major strategic changes to investors, building a resilient team, expanding into the United States, and learning to pursue global ambitions from Montréal.
A candid discussion about entrepreneurship, conviction and the difficult work of creating a future that does not yet exist.
This episode was recorded in French at Startupfest 2026.
7 May 2026
TechPoutine #20 - Building in the AI Era: Talent, Capital, and the Canadian Reality
The crew is back around the table to unpack the AI tidal wave reshaping how companies are built, funded, and run. Eleonore, Nectar, Ian, and Gabriel dig into Shopify's AI-first memo, Jack Dorsey's bet at Block, and what "AI-native" actually means when every company claims the label.
From there: the once-in-a-generation opportunity hiding inside Quebec's 16,000 annual SMB successions, why the future may belong to the trades as much as the technologists, and whether the classroom can survive a tool that's smarter, more patient, and more personalized than any teacher.
Then the gloves come off on Canadian venture: should the federal $750M tech envelope go to growth or early stage? Why raising your seed from a US fund quietly exports the company. And the brutal stat nobody's talking about, emerging manager funding in Canada collapsing from $1.8B to $249M in a single year.
Plus: who's switching from ChatGPT to Claude, why Notion is becoming the OS of the firm, and a few predictions that may not age well by the time you press play.
6 Apr 2026
TechPoutine #19:The AI Land Grab, the Death of SaaS, and Stay22's $122M Raise
Tech Poutine is back and so is the energy.
The Tech Poutine crew is back for the first episode of the year. Recorded straight from the Startup Fest studio , Eleonore, Ian, Gabriel, and I dive into the rapidly shifting landscape of venture capital and the local tech ecosystem. The market is moving incredibly fast, and we break down the most exciting, and terrifying, trends hitting the industry right now.
Episode Highlights
Stay22's Massive Win: We kick things off with a massive shoutout to Andrew and Hamed from Stay22 on their $122 million raise led by Summit Partners. We discuss their incredible grit through multiple near-bankruptcies , how they navigated revenue going to zero during COVID , and the legendary story of Hamed pitching Dave McClure in a taxi.
Is SaaS Dead? We explore the dramatic shift away from the traditional SaaS playbook. The crew analyzes how public markets are repricing software companies with shrinking multiples , while AI-native foundational models are commanding massive valuations based on incredibly high revenue per head.
10x Engineering & The End of Backlogs: AI tools are sending developer productivity through the roof, allowing tiny engineering teams to do the work of much larger traditional teams. We share real-world stories of engineers coding features from their phones while on vacation in Japan and AI product managers automatically generating backlogs by listening to meetings and reading Slack.
Mila Ventures & Canada's Opportunity: Gabriel shares the inside scoop from his new office at Mila, detailing the announcement of Mila Ventures' new fund and the return of a highly entrepreneurial buzz to the ecosystem. We close out with a call for the Canadian ecosystem to abandon its conservative tendencies and move fast to capitalize on this once-in-a-lifetime tech cycle.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Spotify
5.0 / 5
3 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 28 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
31
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
60
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