From a chance meeting to an ALL IN partnership: Nukleo’s Nova Scotia journey comes full circle

One conversation at a conference in Toronto helped change the course of Nukleo’s growth.

When the Montréal-based digital transformation company attended Collision in 2024, it had no office, team or clients in Nova Scotia. But Alexei Bissonnette, Nukleo’s Vice-President of Technology, had been living in Halifax for several years, and the company was beginning to wonder whether there might be a market here for its work.

Then its team met representatives from Digital Nova Scotia and Invest Nova Scotia.

“Meeting them is what made us open an office here,” said Alexei.

Two years later, Nukleo now has a Halifax office, built a four-person local team and developed a growing client base in the province. This week, the company’s journey comes full circle as it helps Atlantic Canadian businesses make connections in Montréal — Nukleo’s home market — as the Presenting Partner of the AI Innovation Showcase Breakfast at ALL IN 2026.

Finding a way into a new market

For a company exploring a new province, the welcome Nukleo received at Collision mattered.

According to Alexei, Digital Nova Scotia offered an immediate connection to the local technology community, while Invest Nova Scotia introduced the company to more of the ecosystem, including Volta, where Nukleo would eventually establish its Halifax office.

“When you want to enter a new province, you can feel like an intruder, or wonder why people would want to accept you when you might be seen as a competitor,” said Alexei. “After meeting Invest Nova Scotia and Digital Nova Scotia, we thought, ‘Okay, we need to at least try this.’”

Just two weeks later, Nukleo’s team travelled to Halifax and attended a Digital Nova Scotia networking mixer in Dartmouth. With no certainty about what would follow, the event became an early test of whether the company could build a future here.

That evening, Nukleo connected with an organization that would become one of its first Nova Scotian clients.

“We met them at our first Digital Nova Scotia event, and looking back, they’ve now been our client for about two years,” said Alexei. “Through them and through that event, we met many of our first clients. Meeting Digital Nova Scotia at Collision, attending that first event and then meeting our first clients — it all went so smoothly.”

The introductions continued. Nukleo joined more events, built relationships across the province and gradually became part of Nova Scotia’s technology community.

The value behind a trade mission

Since that first trip to Collision, Nukleo has joined Digital Nova Scotia at ALL IN 2025 in Montréal and SaaStr AI LDN 2025 in London.

Alexei said the value of a trade mission goes well beyond admission to a major conference.

Large events can be difficult to navigate alone. Thousands of attendees, packed schedules and competing opportunities can make it hard to know where to begin or where a company’s limited time will have the greatest impact. A trusted delegation provides a network to lean on, organized opportunities to meet others and guidance about where to focus.

“When you go abroad or elsewhere in Canada for a conference, you don’t always know what to do,” said Alexei. “There’s so much happening, and it can get confusing. Being part of a group where there are events to meet people like you, organized by an organization you trust, is where the added value comes in.”

The relationships formed within the delegation can be just as valuable as those made on the conference floor.

“Digital Nova Scotia has a good understanding of who does what, so they can connect companies with similar interests or potential clients,” said Alexei. “Helping us identify the right events, where to focus our time and who we should meet has a lot of value.”

Bringing the journey full circle

This week, Digital Nova Scotia is leading 37 organizations from across Atlantic Canada to ALL IN 2026 in Montréal — the city where Nukleo was founded and where much of its team remains based.

As Presenting Partner of the AI Innovation Showcase Breakfast on the conference’s second day, Nukleo is helping give members of the delegation a stage to share their work and spotlight AI solutions being developed across the region.

For a company that found its way into Nova Scotia through connections made at a conference, the opportunity to help Atlantic Canadian businesses build relationships in its home market carries special meaning.

“Digital Nova Scotia has helped us so much, so being able to support the organization through our relationships in Montréal and through this sponsorship is a way of giving back,” said Alexei. “Helping companies from Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada go to Montréal is almost the inverse of the move we made.”

It is a sign of how far Nukleo’s relationship with the province has come: from testing the waters at a single networking event to building a team, serving clients and investing in Nova Scotia’s technology community.

“Bringing a group of Atlantic Canadian companies to Montréal and helping lead part of that experience is a full-circle moment,” said Alexei. “We’re really proud of it.”

Two years ago, one introduction helped Nukleo find its place in Nova Scotia. At ALL IN 2026, the company may help create that same turning point for someone else.