Invest Ottawa ScaleUp Firm, Trexity, has eyes set on growth 

Oct 21, 2022

In 2018, Alok Ahuja, former Shopify executive turned stay-at-home dad, sat at his kitchen table struggling to find time to pick up medications for his father, who was battling cancer, and buy groceries for his family. Ahuja knew he couldn’t be the only person struggling to find more hours in the day for these common errands. 

The Carleton University computer science grad put his entrepreneurial skills to use to build a platform that businesses could use for local, reliable and fast deliveries. 

“I just needed to build a platform that would enable (merchants) to move (goods) faster than they could have ever imagined,” says Alok Ahuja, Co-founder and CEO of Trexity. “That’s where this was born.” 

Alok, alongside Co-founders Mathieu Bouchard and Darren Schnare, brought the ideas that were conceived at Ahuja’s kitchen table to realization. Trexity was born. 

The four-year-old startup now has more than 750+ small and medium-sized merchants and over 15,000 couriers on the platform in Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary and Winnipeg. Included among the merchants are Ottawa local retail institutions such as La Bottega Nicastro, Jacobsons, NRML, Dominion City Brewing, Happy Goat Coffee, and Kettleman’s Bagel Co. 

In early May 2022, Trexity announced it raised a $5 million CAD seed round led by Telus Ventures. The startup has plans to expand its delivery service across Canada and into the United States. First up, Trexity is looking to expand its roots into Vancouver, Edmonton, and Montreal, bringing its total city coverage to seven across Canada. 

“We’ve gotten very smart around the needs of our merchants and the expectations that they’ve set with their customers,” Ahuja says. “Our merchants don’t need to be experts in last mile local delivery, that’s where we come in. Trexity makes adding delivery to any business as easy as flipping on a light switch.” 

Since Trexity hired its first full-time employee in 2019, the company has grown to 20 employees with plans on adding more to the team in the next six months across its marketing, sales, and engineering departments. 

“Trexity joined Invest Ottawa’s ScaleUp Program in 2020 and has since been an active company in our startup ecosystem,” says Nick Quain, Vice President of Venture Development. “Thanks to the considerable funding provided by FedDev Ontario, we are able to help assist Trexity through their early traction and growth stages with assistance around talent, investor connections, advisory and community engagement.” 

In late 2020, Trexity also participated in the Digital Main Street program to assist firms across all BIAs through a pilot program helping Main Street companies access delivery services and expand their reach and services. 

Learn more about Trexity and Invest Ottawa’s ScaleUp Program here.