Venture North draws top North American investors to Toronto during TIFF
TORONTO, September 14, 2016 – As celebrity-scouters flock the red carpet, top American venture capitalists will descend on the Toronto-Waterloo Region corridor today to scout promising Canadian technology at the Venture North conference.
Over two days, local startups founders will look to steal the spotlight, vying for face time with investors who have come up from Silicon Valley, New York City and Boston to experience Toronto during TIFF and meet local entrepreneurs.
In its second year, the region’s largest innovation hubs, MaRS, Communitech, OneEleven and C100 have joined forces to organize the conference.
“This event has been so successful because it not only offers Canadian founders a rare audience with North America’s top investors, but it also allows those investors to interact with the robust support network that’s propelling our tech sector forward,” says Salim Teja, EVP of Ventures at MaRS Discovery District.
Working in fields ranging from digital health and fintech to cybersecurity, quantum computing and artificial intelligence, an impressive group of Canadian ventures will showcase their technologies to investors from over 20 firms, including Silicon Valley Bank, Venrock and Mithril Capital Management. These ventures include BioConnect, Borrowell, Figure 1, Hubba, Medella Health, Nudge Software, RateHub, Ritual and Wealthsimple, among many others.
“This is an opportunity for Ontario to showcase its cutting-edge technology startups to some of the world’s most active investors. The demand for access and the caliber of funds attending affirms that the Canadian tech ecosystem is creating a strong pull with investors from around the world,” says Bilal Khan, Managing Director of OneEleven.
Ontario Minister of Economic Development and Growth Brad Duguid and Ontario Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Laura Albanese will make special appearances at the conference.
“Venture North showcases the depth and breadth of Ontario’s entrepreneurial ecosystem,” says Brad Duguid, Minister of Economic Development and Growth. “Creating this cross-border networking opportunity is helping to connect Ontario’s innovative technology start-ups and ventures with leading global investors.”
As well this year, Venture North will also host a joint reception with NewCo Toronto which will include remarks by Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, City of Toronto Mayor John Tory, and John Battelle, Co-founder and CEO of NewCo.
This year’s Venture North sponsors include BDC Capital, Donaldson and James, Globalive Capital, Ideaboost, CFC, iGan Partners, MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund, OMERS Ventures, Real Ventures, Ryerson Futures, TMX, The Working Group, and the Province of Ontario.
The full event itinerary can be found here.
About MaRS Discovery District
MaRS Discovery District (@MaRSDD) in Toronto is one of the world’s largest urban innovation hubs. MaRS supports promising young ventures that are tackling key challenges in the health, cleantech, finance and commerce, as well as work and learning sectors. In addition to helping startups launch, grow and scale, the MaRS community is dedicated to cross-disciplinary collaboration, commercialization of discoveries and driving ideas to impact.
About OneEleven
OneEleven is a post-seed technology accelerator. It is focused on helping Canada’s most promising, high-growth startups to commercialize their technologies and scale their operations. Its mission is to enable Canada’s best startups to relentlessly focus on value creation and business growth.
About Communitech
Communitech is a private-public innovation centre in Waterloo Region that supports a community ecosystem of more than 1,000 tech companies—from startups to rapidly growing mid-size companies and large global players. A member of the Ontario Network of Entrepreneurs, which is funded by the Ontario Government, Communitech helps tech companies start, grow and succeed.
About C100
C100 is a volunteer, non profit association of highly successful Canadians based in the Bay Area. These investors, senior corporate leaders and successful entrepreneurs form a dynamic group of patriots dedicated to giving back to the community and fostering the next generation of successful Canadian entrepreneurs and innovative companies. They do so through programs, such as CEO Summit and 48Hrs in the Valley, and consultation with corporate leaders and federal ministers to provide key insights so Canadians can build world class companies where we need them: in Canada. We bring “The Best of Silicon Valley to Accelerate Canada’s Innovation Economy”.