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Capital is universally difficult to raise, and this is compounded when founders face unconscious bias, barriers to equal opportunity, and historic under-representation. Equitable access to investments for underrepresented founders benefits all founders in our ecosystem.
In recognition of this, ventureLAB’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fund, in partnership with York Region, awards $10,000 of funding to two non-profit organizations promoting opportunities for the underrepresented foundersin the region, as well as $10,000 of funding to seven eligible underrepresented founders making a difference. ventureLAB, in partnership with York Region, are pleased to announce the winners of both streams of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fund.
Steam 1: Non-Profit Organizations
YEDI (York Entrepreneurship Development Institute)
York Entrepreneurship Development Institute (YEDI) is recognized as a leader in entrepreneurship education and training, offering a range of options for entrepreneurs to reach their educational and growth goals.
Ontario Musicians Co-operative Inc.
The Ontario Musicians Cooperative is a membership-based not-for-profit arts service organization dedicated to assisting new generation and other independent artists in building sustainable careers intersecting the music industry in the 21st Century.
Stream 2: Underrepresented Founders
At Tasteport, the goal is to help people discover, access and share culture through the world of food that surrounds them, and do it from within their busy lives in their very own homes. They make this happen with the Tasteport platforms, which help specialty and diverse grocers, from all backgrounds, cultures and focuses, go digital and create incredible online grocery delivery experiences.
Cyberworks is one of North America's oldest self-driving tech companies and a leading provider of autonomous vehicle navigation technology. We work with global OEM’s to provide next-generation, low-cost autonomous navigation modules for their existing and future products. Cyberworks provides reliable low-cost solutions to upgrade machine fleets for the next generation.
Cheelcare’s revolutionary technology and patented design blend together in a line of assistive mobility devices and accessories. Cheelcare brings to market technologies enabling disabled people to exceed the imposed limits with the help of advanced engineering. Cheelcare's mobility and robotic platforms increase disabled users’ quality of life and provide with the independence they deserve.
HUEX
HUEX is building products to assist and make our daily Human Experience better. Be it businesses, or personal life, the goal is to create an ecosystem of products that assist in the daily touch points and human interactions one may encounter. By leveraging the cutting edge in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Edge Computing, HUEX is building some exciting products that will have profound impact in the future of how we transact, interact and extract from one another.
Apricotton is making sure that no girl goes through puberty alone by creating bras that grow as she does.
MapleWiz is Canada's Leading GPS Tracking, IOT and mobile application development company that tracks vehicles, kids and pets. YoPets allows live tracking of pets in real-time, with updates every 5 seconds to keep them safe.
FAIRLY keeps AI responsible and regulated, and makes it easy to apply AI governance with policies and controls.
Congratulations to all the winners of this year's very competitive Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fund!
About York Region
York Region is Canada’s second-largest tech hub, home to a mosaic of cultures including 47% of residents born outside of Canada, home to Canada’s most ethnically diverse community (City of Markham) with more than 120 different spoken languages and over 230 distinct ethnic origins.
About ventureLAB
ventureLAB is a leading global founder community for hardware technology and enterprise software companies in Canada. Located at the heart of Ontario’s innovation corridor in York Region, ventureLAB is part of one of the biggest and most diverse tech communities in Canada. Our initiatives focused on raising capital, talent retention, commercializing technology and IP, and customer acquisition have enabled thousands of companies to create over 4,500 jobs and raise more than $200 million in investment capital. At ventureLAB, we grow globally competitive tech titans that build-to-scale in Canada, for global markets.
