AXL
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, North America
Overview
AXL is a Toronto-based venture studio that systematically creates and launches companies at the forefront of human-centric AI. AXL is located at the Schwartz-Reisman Innovation Campus (SRIC) at the University of Toronto - co-located with the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence and the University of Toronto’s Computer Science Department and startup accelerators.
- Total investments
- 1
- Lead investments
- 1
- Investments · 12mo
- 1
- Active investors
- 1
Sector focus
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Investment portfolio
- Liquid Interactive
Led · Seed · Jul 2026
Liquid Interactive builds visual-first, interactive AI experiences and launched its first product, Liquid Photos, which transforms static camera-roll images into interactive, explorable visuals. The company was prototyped inside AXL and spun out as a standalone venture co-founded by Sasha Ivanov (CEO) and Ben Pearman (CTO). Liquid Photos has early traction from social demos that accumulated over 1 million views and drew engagement from leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Apple, and Adobe. The company plans additional products on the same technology, including Liquid Studio for brands, agencies, and creative teams to create interactive brand stories. Financially, Liquid Interactive closed a C$700,000 pre-seed round from AXL to support its launch and operations. The founders previously built Maple Scan, which has more than 130,000 downloads.
Team
Daniel Wigdor
Founder
LinkedIn