Solink raises more than $100 million for AI vision intelligence on 500,000 business cameras

The funding and the company

The Globe and Mail reported on 29 October 2026 that Solink Corp., an Ottawa company selling AI software that monitors business operations inside restaurants, stores and warehouses, raised more than $100 million in new growth capital. Toronto-based Vertu Capital led the financing, backed by Goldman Sachs Asset Management's GS Growth unit (an existing investor) and new investors Golub Growth and Comcast Ventures. About 90 percent of the amount raised went to Solink; the rest paid early investors for their stakes.Solink was founded in 2010 by Simon Matta, a University of Waterloo electrical engineering graduate who came up with the concept after spending time tracking customer-traffic patterns for BCE Inc.'s The Source retail chain. Rather than visiting stores to collect data, Matta developed software that remotely taps existing security cameras and marries the video feeds to point-of-sale data, then uses AI to mine the combined data for operational insights.

The scale

Solink now operates across 35,000 customer locations in 65 countries, monitoring more than 500,000 cameras. The company uploads more than 750 million hours of data a month — 20 times the amount uploaded to YouTube daily, according to Matta. Revenues have been growing over 40 percent a year and are on track to surpass $100 million on an annual basis by April 2027.

The platform works by taking security feeds from cameras already installed for insurance and security purposes, then layering AI analysis on top of point-of-sale data. It pinpoints specific events — such as when employees key in discounts — and uploads relevant clips to the cloud so operators can search and review them.

The AI agent pivot

The financing will largely be used to build out an 'intelligence layer' for the AI agents Solink offers customers. Matta expects those agents and related intelligence tools to account for more than 40 percent of Solink's revenue within three years, up from less than 10 percent now. The agents automate managers' directions to staff based on data received through the platform — for example, flagging that a certain store's staffing pattern is reducing throughput.

The company frames this as the next phase of its evolution from security monitoring to operational intelligence: the cameras see what happens, the AI finds the pattern, and the agent tells someone what to do about it.

What it means

Solink's raise is a relatively rare Canadian AI growth round at this scale — especially one led by a Canadian firm (Vertu Capital) rather than a US or Chinese investor. The $100 million-plus funding, combined with its already-profitable core business, puts Solink in a strong position in the AI vision market that targets physical operations rather than security.

The AI agent angle is the most interesting part: 500,000 cameras becoming inputs to autonomous operational decisions, not just recordings for review. If Solink hits its 40 percent revenue target from agents, it signals that the AI vision market is maturing past alerts into full operational recommendations.

Caveats and what to watch

The revenue and growth figures are company-reported. The platform's reliance on existing camera infrastructure means it inherits whatever privacy and consent regimes apply to those cameras in each of its 65 markets.

Watch whether other physical-operations AI companies follow Solink into the agent-based recommendation model, and whether Solink expands beyond retail and restaurants into manufacturing, logistics or healthcare.

The competitive landscape

Solink operates in a growing market of AI vision intelligence for physical businesses, alongside companies like Verkada that focus on cloud-connected security cameras sold as hardware-plus-software subscriptions, and Cobalt Robotics/Relay that target facility monitoring. Solink's differentiation is that it works with cameras businesses already have, rather than requiring new hardware, and that its AI is layered on top of the existing security install base.

The partnership with Goldman Sachs Alternatives is notable because GS Growth typically invests in software companies with large addressable markets and recurring revenue models, not hardware-heavy security businesses. Solink's existing growth rate (40% annually) and its transition toward agent-based revenue (projected 40%+ from agents in three years) align with that software-and-data profile.

Limitations

The platform's accuracy and reliability depend on the quality of the cameras already installed at each customer site — not all 500,000 cameras are equal, and video quality, placement and network connectivity will vary. The AI agent claims (40%+ of revenue within three years) are aspirational projections, not current metrics.

The company operates in 65 countries, which means it inherits each jurisdiction's privacy, surveillance and data-retention laws. Any changes to regulation around workplace camera monitoring or biometric data could affect the platform model.