Bloks, the Un-CRM for financial advisors, was named to ALL IN's list of Canada's Top 100 AI Startups on 21 July 2026. The same month, cofounder and CEO Marc Gingras joined Mila, the Quebec AI institute founded by Yoshua Bengio, as Founder in Residence. Bloks was founded in 2021 by the team behind Tungle and Foko Retail and is based in Gatineau, Quebec.

Two weeks ago an email landed in my inbox that I wasn't allowed to talk about.

Today, I finally can.

Bloks has been named one of Canada's Top 100 AI Startups, announced this morning by ALL IN, Canada's largest AI and tech event.

It arrives in the same month I joined Mila, the AI institute founded by Yoshua Bengio, as Founder in Residence. And Bloks moved to its new home: bloks.ai.

I've built three companies. I've never had a month where the outside world caught up to the inside story all at once.

Here's why it matters, and it's not the trophy.

Since we started Bloks in 2021, the sharpest question we get isn't about features. It's this: is Bloks actually an AI company, or just software with AI bolted on?

Fair question. Right now, every software company on earth is claiming the label.

But the people asking aren't tech journalists. They're financial advisors: people whose clients trust them with their life savings, deciding whether to trust us with the conversations that make up their practice. When your records, your compliance documentation, your client relationships run through a piece of software, "who built this, and are they at the frontier?" is not a vanity question. It's diligence.

So this month is for them. The recognition from Canada's AI ecosystem. The residency at its leading institute. The name on the door: bloks.ai.

My mother used to say empty vessels make the most noise. We spent years filling the vessel quietly.

Today, someone else made the noise for us.