Beyond the Blueprint: How an Atlantic Canadian Startup is Rewiring Manufacturing

ST. JOHN’S, NL – October 28, 2026 – The physical infrastructure we rely on daily—from the wind turbines powering our electrical grids to the business jets crossing our skies—is built upon a hidden, highly complex foundation of mechanical engineering decisions. For decades, the systems used to manage these critical design choices have been siloed, manual, and painfully slow, relying heavily on the institutional memory of a few veteran engineers.

Today, the landscape of industrial manufacturing is undergoing a profound transformation, and the catalyst is not emerging from Silicon Valley, but from the rugged shores of Newfoundland and Labrador.

CoLab, a St. John’s-based engineering software startup, announced today that it has ranked No. 23 on Deloitte Canada’s 2026 Technology Fast 50 list. Marking its second consecutive year on the prestigious ranking, the company posted a staggering 1,075% revenue growth between 2022 and 2025. This achievement is particularly notable given the fierce competition in this year's cohort, which posted a record-breaking average growth rate of 3,079%—raising the bar for inclusion to its highest point in recent history.

Yet, looking through the lens of community well-being and corporate evolution, the real story here extends far beyond quadruple-digit revenue metrics. CoLab’s sustained momentum underscores a fundamental shift in how the world’s largest manufacturers are adopting artificial intelligence. They are moving away from viewing AI as a tool for mere automation, and instead embracing it as a mechanism to capture, preserve, and scale human ingenuity.

Atlantic Canada’s Unlikely Industrial Tech Hub

Founded in 2017 by Adam Keating and Jeremy Andrews, CoLab has quietly built an enterprise technology powerhouse far outside the traditional software corridors of San Francisco or Toronto. The company’s trajectory highlights the growing viability of regional innovation ecosystems, proving that world-class enterprise software can be cultivated in communities that prioritize talent retention and sustainable growth.

To date, the firm has raised $112 million USD in venture capital, scaling its workforce to over 250 employees. Its most recent financial injection—a $72 million Series C round in late 2025 led by AI-focused Intrepid Growth Partners—pushed the company's valuation to an estimated $500 million. By leveraging regional capital and remote talent, the founders have successfully built an industrial enterprise tech hub that is now competing, and winning, on a global scale.

“CoLab has reached a significant size and scale, and yet we continue to grow rapidly,” said Adam Keating, Co-Founder and CEO of CoLab. “In the last year, major AI contracts with global engineering organizations have contributed significantly to that growth. CoLab is uniquely positioned to help large companies adopt AI for engineering, because we are mature enough to drive impactful change management, while maintaining the agility of a high-growth startup.”

This balance of maturity and agility is crucial. Industrial manufacturing is not a sector that tolerates the "move fast and break things" ethos of consumer tech. The stakes are simply too high. When designing aerospace components or renewable energy infrastructure, safety, compliance, and precision are paramount.

The Generative Engineering Shift

For years, the bottleneck in hardware development has not been the creation of the initial design, but the grueling process of reviewing it. Traditional Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems, while excellent for storing data, were never built for agile, real-time collaboration.

CoLab addresses this systemic flaw through its EngineeringOS platform, an AI-powered workspace that connects people and data. The company recently expanded its platform beyond mechanical CAD review to support broader engineering workflows with the release of "generative artifacts." These tools help manufacturers capture, share, and apply engineering knowledge at scale.

At the heart of this shift is AutoReview, an AI agent launched by the company last year that quickly amassed a waitlist of over 47,000 engineers. Rather than attempting to replace human designers, the technology acts as an intelligent peer checker. It automates first-pass design checks and surfaces internal company guidelines, ensuring that past mistakes are not repeated.

As one industry analyst recently observed regarding the industrial software market, the most valuable AI applications are those that codify a corporation's hard-won lessons, turning the tacit knowledge of a retiring senior engineer into an active, scalable asset for the entire organization. By resurfacing these "lessons learned" precisely when they are needed for future programs, the platform effectively bridges the generational knowledge gap that currently threatens the manufacturing sector.

Rewiring the Titans of Industry

The practical application of this technology is already reshaping the operations of some of the world's most critical industrial giants. Over the last year, CoLab has significantly expanded its footprint among leading global manufacturers, proving that its collaborative AI approach integrates seamlessly into massive, legacy ecosystems.

In April, the company secured a multi-year, multimillion-dollar agreement with Bombardier to deploy AI solutions for the design and manufacturing of its business jets. This is not a superficial pilot program; it is a company-wide initiative to embed AI directly into Bombardier's engineering workflows, shortening development timelines while maintaining rigorous safety standards.

Similarly, sustainable energy leader Vestas signed a new global contract with the software firm to optimize its R&D and supplier network. By utilizing AI-powered design reviews, Vestas aims to automatically apply internal design-for-manufacturing guidelines across its vast supply chain. In the race to build robust renewable energy infrastructure to combat climate change, shaving months off the design cycle of a wind turbine translates directly to faster deployment of green energy grids.

Furthermore, the company recently expanded a multi-year agreement with Schaeffler, consolidating previous contracts to make the platform the standard design review environment for over 1,700 engineers across North America, Europe, and Asia. Because the software integrates smoothly with Schaeffler’s existing enterprise PLM systems, it enhances rather than disrupts the established technological foundation.

The Human Element in Autonomous Design

As we look toward our collective future, the systems that allow communities to thrive will increasingly depend on complex hardware—from electric vehicles to advanced medical devices and climate-resilient infrastructure. The speed and safety with which we can engineer these solutions directly impact public well-being.

The inclusion of a St. John's startup on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 list is a testament to impressive financial scaling, but it is also a signal of a broader, more vital industrial evolution. We are witnessing the transition from manual, siloed engineering to a collaborative, AI-augmented future.

By focusing on the human element of design—capturing the nuanced expertise of veteran engineers and making it accessible to the next generation—this new wave of generative engineering software ensures that as our machines become more autonomous, they remain deeply rooted in human wisdom. It is a compassionate, highly practical approach to technological advancement, ensuring that the industrial forces building our world do so with greater safety, speed, and shared intelligence.