Eleven early-stage startups launched into the Toronto-Waterloo Innovation Corridor this week in Canada during the Founder Institute Waterloo FALL 2019 Launch Party, including seven female founders, at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) on Wednesday, January 29, 2020.
“Globally, less than 3% of venture capital goes to female founders. This needs to change quickly which is why we launched our Female Founder Initiative with the mission to increase female-founded companies in our global portfolio to 40% in 2020,” said Jordan Jocius, Founder Institute Waterloo Director. “Over 63% of our Waterloo FALL 2019 cohort are female founders.”
The pitch event was live-streamed globally from CIGI to over 200 local attendees including nearly 30 investors.
Renowned Canadian startup investor Sunil Sharma, the Founder Institute Toronto Director and Managing Director of Techstars Toronto, shared that “this particular class surprised me because of the geographic footprint of the founders. We often hear talk about the Waterloo-Toronto tech corridor but I have yet to see something like this where we had the majority of the founders coming from across the GTA and who went to Waterloo each week to refine and ultimately launch their startup by leveraging the expertise of the local mentors.”
Partners for the four-month pre-seed accelerator included innovation hub Communitech where five of the female founders are currently enrolled in the Fierce Founders program which is hosting a $100k pitch finale on Wednesday, February 26, 2020 (Fierce Founders Finale).
Other program sponsors included law firm Gowling WLG, accounting firm BDO, coworking space Workhaus, Google Developers and Rebels of Design.
“At Workhaus our team attends every Founder Institute cohort launch, in Toronto and Waterloo, and this cohort was easily the best we’ve ever seen,” said Adam Mawer, Director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Workhaus which is a Canadian made coworking space. “Toronto-Waterloo is the highest-rated Canadian startup ecosystem and it showed with this cohort.”
The presenting startups included:
- Bounc3 - Portable and customizable benefits to help gig workers maintain and build their financial health.
- Cleanbee - Connects home owners to entrepreneurial minded cleaners making the luxury of hiring a cleaning service affordable while paying fair wages to cleaners.
- Finiite - A facial recognition app that recommends skincare products to users based on predictive AI/computer vision models.
- FUZE RENTALS - A peer-to-peer marketplace that allows users to find high quality clothes for one-time use special occasions and allows listers to monetize the clothes in their closet they already have.
- KICKIN - Social shopping discovery platform that connects like-minded shoppers with their favourite brands to easily discover new products and engage toward latest social trends all-in-one place.
- Loganno - A SaaS platform that helps software product managers cut down the research and development costs of triaging software and system failures by employing proprietary AI for automated analysis of software logs.
- Postavant - Helps art lovers and collectors access expertise, real-time artwork and art market information with on-demand video classes and personalized art recommendations powered by AI.
- Sponsor Circle - A matchmaker for business.
- Tradesjet - A real-time workforce platform that manages employees and sources talent for the construction industry.
- TRUSTiiN - Enables companies to accelerate digital innovation via our Testing-as-a-Service (TaaS) Platform using the power of AI and the crowd to transform the world into a testbed.
- Wellbow - A hardware wearable device that provides therapeutic benefits for those suffering from different hand and elbow conditions.
The Founder Institute is coordinated by volunteer local leaders Sunil Sharma (Toronto Director), Jordan Jocius (Waterloo Director) and Investor-in-Residence Robert Whiteside (Founding Partner & Director, Treemark Capital).
The Waterloo mentors who helped during the FALL 2019 cohort included:
- Isaac Adejuwon, Founder & CEO, Metricsflow
- Richard Adkin, Founder & CEO, FLIKLI
- Kaleah Baker, Co-Founder & COO, BridesMade
- Grace Bartz, Manager, BDC
- Robert Bruski, Co-Founder & CFO, Ctrl V
- Lisa Cashmore, VP Start and Scale, Communitech
- Joseph Dales, Co-Founder & Director, Farms.com
- Elaine Decleir, Co-Founder, robin+elaine
- Viona Duncan, Partner, Gowling WLG
- Bob Embleton, Co-Founder & CEO, Cicer One
- Nabil Fahel, Director of Partnerships, Terminal
- Bryan Fedorak, Founder, Bartesian
- Kevin Forestell, Co-Founder & CEO, DOZR
- Amber French, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Catalyst Capital
- Sean Gomes, Partner, Gowling WLG
- Will Greenblatt, Co-Founder & Managing Director, OutLoud Speakers School
- Alexandra Hardy, Partner, BDO Canada
- Shane Hart, CEO, Competers
- Stephanie Hayes, Associate, Gowling WLG
- Chad Hepburn, Manager, BDO
- Barry Hillier, Founder & CEO, eQuo
- Cole Jones, Founder & CEO, Local Line
- Moazam Khan, Co-Founder & CEO, Curiato
- Andy Lee, Co-Founder & CEO, Sienci Labs
- Robin Lindner, Co-Founder, robin+elaine
- Jeff MacIntyre, Co-Founder, Grappleworks
- Adam Mawer, Director, Workhaus
- Ryan McCartney, BDC Communitech Partner, BDC
- Charles Mire, Co-Founder & CEO, Structur3D Printing
- Susan Motkaluk, Chair CEO Advisor, TEC Canada
- Riley O’Hagan, Manager, BDO
- Lucas Porter-Bakker, Co-Founder & CEO, GOJI
- Alycia Riley, Associate, Gowling WLG
- Wendy Robertson, Managing Director, Assemble
- James Slifierz, Co-Founder and CEO, SkyWatch
- Ben Stacey, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, The DMZ
- Robert Whiteside, Founding Partner & Director, Treemark Capital
- Jeffrey Wong, Partner, Gowling WLG
- Kayla Zawiski, Founder & CEO, The Local Advocate
- Brian Zubert, Director, Thomson Reuters Labs
- Beisan Zubi, Founder & CEO, CSR for Startups
In the Founder Institute's pre-seed accelerator program, early-stage entrepreneurs and teams build their business alongside a critical support network of local startup experts that share equity in their success, and through a structured and challenging business-building process that has helped alumni raise over 2BN.
After Graduation, the new Founder Institute Waterloo startups launch with a fast-growing company that has been fully validated by experienced startup founders, with access to the Founder Institute's global network and post-graduate support programs to continue building their business.
Leaders of the world’s fastest-growing startups have used the Founder Institute to raise funding, get into seed-accelerators, generate traction, recruit a team, build a product, transition from employee to entrepreneur, and more. Based in Silicon Valley and with chapters across 200 cities and 100 countries, the Founder Institute’s mission is to empower talented and motivated entrepreneurs to build companies that will create one million new jobs.
The next Founder Institute Waterloo program starts March 3, 2020.
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Graduates of the Founder Institute are creating some of the world's fastest growing startups, having raised over 2BN in funding, and building products people love across over 200 cities worldwide.
See the most recent news from our Grads at FI.co/news, or learn more about their stories at FI.co/journey.
