BDC StrongNorth's First Cyber Bet | Karl Holmqvist — Explorer Spotlight #2
BDC Capital’s new defence fund led a $16M round into Lastwall, a New Brunswick firm that found success in the U.S.
May 27th, 2026 - Lastwall, a New Brunswick-based cybersecurity company, announced a $16m investment round led by BDC through the StrongNorth Fund as the fund’s first cybersecurity investment.
This is one of the first investments made by the Business Development Bank of Canada’s StrongNorth Fund, which launched earlier this year and is investing $300M in 30-40 early-stage Canadian startups over the next four years as part of Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy. StrongNorth plans to add significant capital by leading venture rounds in Canada’s defence and dual-use sector.
I asked the Founder and CEO of Lastwall, Karl Holmqvist, a few questions on the floor of CANSEC about his perspective on this opportunity.
In one sentence, what are you building, and why?
“We are building an identity platform for the resilience era, because the vast majority of attacks generally follow a pattern where somebody uses credentials in the attack chain.”
What’s one trait you think a founder needs to succeed in this market?
“Resilience. I think founders need to be prepared for a lot of change. You can’t quit when something goes bad. You've got to keep going.”
Given the recent funding, what does the next 12 months look like for Lastwall?
“So to unpack that a little bit, we took a different path than a lot of others. We spent a lot of time building capability and product first. So we’re not a young company. We’ve been around for a little while, about a decade. And we built a really amazing platform, but we didn’t want to get to a point where we couldn’t sell it to the regulated markets that we needed. So we went after hard mode first. We went after certification with clients like the U.S. government and the Department of Defense. So now this stage is that we have the established technology that’s proven in the field that can show it can operate in austere, contested environments. We need to scale the go-to-market side of the company. And that’s what this round is about.”
What does this allow you to accomplish?
“So we hit FedRAMP Moderate certification in May 2025, which is a pretty big deal for a company like ours. It allows us to serve any U.S. government agency. But I think it also sends a really strong signal to Canada and other allies that this is technology that can be used in those environments, and it’s suitable for regulated critical infrastructure industries like power or oil and gas, and it also is good for defence or government work. What this allows us to do is continue expanding and growing in the U.S. market. But also, it gives us a chance to help Canada and other nations that are looking at building their sovereign capabilities or building digital defence capabilities to have an alternative option that’s focused on emerging threats and has that sort of capability set that is needed for the next couple of years.”
What other Canadian national-interest startups are worth watching?
“I would say Dominion Dynamics is a really interesting company. What Eliot’s trying to do with that team is quite fascinating. I’d probably also say North Vector Dynamics is really interesting.”
Why build in Canada?
“Well, we are Canadian founders, and we feel like Canada is an amazing place to build. We have deep and smart engineering talent pools. We’ve got a really well-recognized and trusted brand internationally, and we feel like being a Canadian company allows us to not only service the North American defence market, but it also gives us a great platform to export. You know, if you take a Canadian company and you take us abroad, we’re well-liked, and, you know, people respect Canada, and so it makes a really excellent way to get into new markets.”
“This is not a pivot away from the U.S. It’s the next phase of a North American resilience mission […] Lastwall intends to be at the center of the mission to protect our continent, which means helping defend critical systems on both sides of the border.” — Karl Holmqvist, Founder and CEO of Lastwall.
Canada is beginning to see a renewed focus on startups, venture capital, defence, and the national interest. Lastwall, a cybersecurity firm from Fredericton, New Brunswick, which has seen success in the U.S. market, views this as an opportunity to build deeper into Canada.
Canada requires not only the capacity to build generational companies but also to attract them.
If you’re building something in Canada, I want to hear about it. contact@ethanmarcoux.com
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