Total revenue generated by Momentum ventures
Capital raised by Momentum ventures
Jobs created by Momentum ventures
Momentum is supporting the next generation of great Canadian companies as they scale to $100 million in revenue.
We’re built by and for the entrepreneurs leading fast-scaling Canadian science and technology companies. When you join Momentum you and your executive team get access to executive mentors who have grown late stage companies, a peer community of leaders living the same challenges as you are, and MaRS’ platform of data and technical insights. We dive deep on: sales and marketing optimization, building great cultures and high performing teams, growth strategy and financing, and have particular expertise on growth through acquisition.
We know every hour in your day is precious. We designed high-impact programming to give you and your team the insight and support you need to see challenges coming and stay on the path of growth.
Our program runs continuously with on-demand advisory and scheduled events. Momentum does not charge fees or take equity to join. We’re looking for driven companies with at least $20 million in revenue or $50 million capital raised. Reach out to momentum@marsdd.com to start the conversation on how Momentum can help you.
Meet Canada's future economic stars
From clean-energy storage and AI-enabled drug development, to biometric security and data-driven sales enablement, the companies in MaRS Momentum cover a wide range of sectors. These companies are using leading-edge technology and science to improve global life in all aspects: education, finance, business, sustainability, entertainment and more.
The one thing they have in common? They’re ramping up to reach $100 million in revenue.
Momentum companies are some of the biggest drivers of economic and social impact for Canada
Krista Jones
Chief Delivery Officer
Krista has been the driving force behind the creation of Momentum, a MaRS program helping scaling Canadian companies reach $100 million in revenue by 2024. Krista has been a passionate innovator and builder of technology-based businesses for over 30 years. She has spent her career working in and advising over 200 organizations, including public companies, high-growth firms and startups. Krista is an engineer, entrepreneur, mentor and expert problem solver. She has a unique combination of strategic, technical, operational and marketing expertise. And she is known for her comprehensive knowledge of the existing and emerging enterprise tech stack (architectures, technologies) and commercialization practices. Her greatest joys come from working with and learning from diverse, talented and ambitious people, as well as being a mother to three amazing young adults.
Mike Abramsky
Executive in Residence
Scale-up experience: CEO of Argus Software
- Scaled to $60M ARR/$15M EBIT
- >80,000 customers in nine countries with 40,000 SMB users
- Transitioned company to SaaS model
- Company in turn-around; stabilized and refocused business to supporting 2.4M daily travelers
- Launched an innovative customer experience
- Ranked Wall Street analyst, Managing Director RBC Capital Markets. Covered B2B, B2B2C and other tech companies
- President, Rogers New Media
- BS/MS Engineering MIT; MBA from Harvard
- Creative Destruction Lab Mentor
- Optimizing your value proposition, demand generation and product value pricing strategies
- Positioning your company for success in public markets and late-stage financing, including understanding and managing investor and board stakeholder perspectives
Scott Bagby
Executive in Residence
Scale-up experience: Vice President, New Markets at Skype
- Employee #13 at Skype responsible for 90% of Skype’s total revenue via their telecom business revenues
- Led the market development strategies for Asia, South America, Europe
- Grew organization from $0 to $800MM in revenue – 90% of revenue base
- Responsible for establishing and running all Rdio territories outside the U.S.
- Established and opened offices in 85 different markets including India, Singapore, Australia, the UK, Germany, Japan, Brazil, Mexico and more
- Set-up multiple international joint ventures with business leaders from Nova Entertainment, and Grupo Bandeirandtes de Comunicaçã0 while at Rdio, and tom.com while at Skype
- Supported Starbucks as they expanded into China via local license holder including site selection and negotiating market entry
- Active entrepreneur of A Retail Space, navigated headwinds caused by COVID in the physical retail space to a successful merger
- International expansion
- Scaling international sales processes
Richard Bozzato
Executive in Residence
Scale-up Experience: Head of Drug Development at Allelix Biopharmaceuticals
- Successful product development partnership with multinational Pharma
- Team member raising venture capital financing and eventual IPO
- Early-stage research through to clinical development
- Growth of drug development programs from 10 staff to over 200.
- Successful regulatory approval and marketing authorization
- Founder of Advanced Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering Consortium - industry-academic partnership
- Integrated multi-site contract manufacturing and clinical development facilities
- Biotech strategic partnerships
- Therapeutics product development strategies
- VC interactions and financing
- Product licensing (in-/out)
Daneal Charney
Executive in Residence
Scale-up experience:
- HR executive for several later-stage companies
- Scaled headcount from 30-50% YOY
- Significantly decreased turnover and re-engaged employees
- Supported the HR integration of two smaller companies and spun out of another
- Co-author of 2021/22 People Benchmarking Report for High Growth SaaS Companies
- Frequent contributor to The Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, HR Reporter
- Top 25 Human Resource Award winner
- M&A cultural integration
- Building a magnetic employer value proposition
- How do you measure up to external HR benchmarks
Dennis Ensing
Executive in Residence
Scale-up experience:
- CEO of TransGaming (now FinDev, TSX-V: FDI), a leading digital media company Previously served as CFO/COO
- Took company public via RTO and raised over $25M
- Through strategic M&A acquired key talent and titles/brands to become first cloud-based games provider in cable TV segment
- CFO of Viron Therapeutics
- Raised US$20M Series B including venture and strategic investors
- Directly involved in over $500M of financing and M&A transactions in the past 10 years
- Past-CEO of Equation Angels, Canada's second largest Angel network, whose model he helped architect in 2017
- Investor and Past-Chair of the Board of Sensory Technologies, a health-tech venture
- Chartered Business Valuator
- Strategic Planning
- Inorganic growth / M&A
- Pitching for capital
- Mentorship
Petia Tchouk
Director, Momentum Services
Petia leads program development for Momentum, a MaRS program that supports high-growth companies on their way to reaching $100 million in revenue. She started her career in foreign policy before pivoting into accelerating the growth of Canadian companies, helping them expand into international markets, connect with customers, and tap into funding.
Kristina Cleary
Executive in Residence
Scale-up Experience:
- Global CMO of Ceridian
- Scaled Dayforce from $0 to $20M leading to acquisition by Ceridian
- Led Ceridian marketing team to most successful tech IPO of 2018 and $1B in revenue
- Restructured marketing organization into Revenue Center of Excellence leading to 40% of revenue driven by marketing
- VP Marketing of Workbrain
- Scaled Workbrain from $10 to $200M leading to acquisition by Infor
- Grew marketing organization from team of two to 20 people
- Founder of ACCELLE Women in Leadership, which accelerates the personal and professional success of women
- Board member of Orion Talent, Trios College
- All things pre-sales and marketing: brand, awareness, demand generation, PR, performance marketing, etc.
- Sales and marketing operations
- Leadership, organisation structure and team engagement
- Corporate scorecards, metrics and analytics
Michael Madsen
Executive in Residence
Scale-up experience: Executive Vice President, Pentair
- Grew company from $55M to $180M in 11 years
- Managed five integration projects
- Developed and championed Sales Process Excellence initiative across $250M global business unit
- Deployed globalization and channel growth strategy
- CEO of PE-owned company acquired for $32M and sold for $165M in five years
- Improved EBITDA margin from 9% to 20% via operational excellence strategy
- Acquired one bolt on company as vehicle to enter new market
- Built new US and Belgium plants to expand operations
- Investor and Board member of 2 growth ventures
- Investment thesis advisor to two PE firms
- Sales process
- Product portfolio management
- Strategy execution
- Operations/manufacturing continuous improvement
Saeideh Fard
SVP Finance, PointClickCare
Saeideh is an executive leader consistently recognized for bringing operational perspectives to financial decisions in fast-paced, transforming organizations. She has led teams through innovative and complex change projects in VC, PE, and owner managed private entities within the technology, media, communications, retail and travel sectors. In addition to her financial roles, she is a culture and change advocate. Focused on people and teams, she has elevated contributions of individual players, developed accountability across all levels, and motivated teams to achieve stretch goals.
Fay Wu
Managing Director, NFQ Ventures Ltd.
Fay is managing director at NFQ Ventures. She specializes in advising and working with high-growth companies to put in place the foundations to accelerate and build scaleable organizations; from people management, best practices, to risk management, and reporting and measurement systems. Fay thrives on strategic challenges and designing creative solutions to seemingly impossible problems. Most recently she held the role of EVP and CFO with Fuse Powered Inc. where she shepherded the company through venture financings, acquisition and divestitures through to its sale to a U.S. company. Prior to this she spent 15 years as an entrepreneur building software, services, and consulting companies within the Castek Group. Following the sale of these companies, she co-founded NFQ Ventures to invest in high-growth companies. During her entrepreneurial career, Castek companies earned numerous awards including "Top Product Launch" and "Top Transformation Company" in the prestigious Branham Awards competitions and also “50 Best Managed Private Companies in Canada.” Prior to her entrepreneurial career, Fay held senior roles with major U.S. and Canadian financial institutions where she structured large-scale project financing and managed lending transactions and asset portfolios ranging in size from $100MM - $300MM., in addition to co-managing portfolios with up to $1 billion in real estate loan assets. Fay holds an MBA from York University’s Schulich School of Business, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Canadian Bankers (FICB). She is also a graduate of the MIT Birthing of the Giants program, the Harvard Program on Negotiation, and thrives on constant learning. Fay is multi-lingual and has worked globally in Europe and Asia. Her interests include travel to remote regions of the world, scuba diving, skiing, real estate development, design and photography. She also serves on not-for-profit boards and takes pride in growing and mentoring the next generation of all-stars.
The latest news from Momentum
About the Scale-Up Platform
Leveraging more than $52-million from FedDev Ontario, the Scale-Up Platform is a collaboration among Communitech, Invest Ottawa and MaRS Discovery District that will help thousands of high-growth firms attract more customers, talent, sales and capital, and increase their potential to become $100-million-plus anchor companies.
