Helping high-potential solutions scale
Women of all backgrounds are a powerful force in Canada’s innovation economy, but they’re significantly underrepresented in the area of clean technology.
Women account for only 28.6 percent of the environmental and clean technology workforce. And only one in 10 cleantech founders is a woman.
It’s time to change that.
Helping high-potential solutions scale
Program objectives
The RBC Women in Cleantech Accelerator has five main objectives:
- Seek out the most-promising women entrepreneurs, representative of Canada’s diversity.
- Enable their dedication to the mission.
- Establish a community of women founders to share resources, advice and support, as well as celebrate successes and overcome challenges.
- Support success through mentorship, educational programming and access to market intelligence.
- Make timely connections to investors and corporate partners.
Program objectives
Participant benefits
- Access to a MaRS business advisor with deep sector knowledge to guide their business and technical innovation.
- Enhanced public profile through the Women in Cleantech brand, including press releases, media and cleantech industry events.
- A curriculum designed by MaRS experts to help cohort members gain the business skills needed to succeed in a competitive market.
- Curated introductions to domestic and international investors and corporations.
- Access to mentor networks, investor showcases and events with influential women-identified leaders and industry experts.
- Opportunities to build relationships with the other selected ventures and previous Women in Cleantech cohort participants.
- Access to market intelligence, capital, talent and communications services offered through MaRS.
- Access to a federal government lab facility that is matched to the selected venture’s specific research and development needs.
Participant benefits
Who are we looking for?
- Woman-identifying and non-binary leaders who are working to commercialize a cleantech innovation with potential for global impact.
- Leaders of registered Canadian corporations.
Applications are NOW OPEN.
Who are we looking for?
Program eligibility
- You identify as a woman or non-binary person.
- You are the main technology innovator or individual leading or co-leading a Canadian business.
- You are part of a business venture that is registered as a Canadian corporation.
- Fall under MaRS Discovery District’s definition of “cleantech,” which for the purposes of this accelerator is defined as: “A company that is focused on the creation of intellectual property and new products that protect and/or increase efficient utilization of land, energy, water and natural resources while improving economic performance and reducing the environmental footprint relative to the baseline.”
- Be proprietary and/or patentable
- Have the potential to scale globally for major impact
Fall within TRL 3 and TRL 5, on the nine-point technology readiness level spectrum (TRL):
- TRL 3: Active research and development is initiated
- TRL 4: Basic testing to validate the technology in a laboratory/controlled setting
- TRL 5: Component and/or validation in a simulated environment
PARTNERS
In partnership with
Our advisors are some of Canada’s foremost cleantech experts.
Jane Kearns
Partner, Evok Innovations
Jane is a recognized leader in sustainable innovation and leverages over 25 years of experience in clean technology, sustainability and venture capital. She has co-founded, scaled and exited a renewable energy company.
Prior to Evok, Jane was Vice President, Growth Services and Senior Advisor, Cleantech at MaRS Discovery District, a launchpad for Canadian startups, where she oversaw development and delivery of products and services for 1,100 tech and hard tech ventures.
Jane sits on the boards of Clear Blue Technologies International (TSXV: CBLU) and Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corporation IV (NASDAQ: DCRD), is an advisory board member for StandUp Ventures and Amplify Capital, and was a member of the Expert Panel on Clean Growth for the Canadian Climate Institute. She is a Cleantech and Energy faculty member at Singularity University, and holds an MBA from Columbia University.
Tyler Hamilton
Senior Director, Climate, MaRS
Tyler guides all climate-related activities for ventures, corporate partners and investors, including the flagship Mission from MaRS program. He is also on the board of the Ontario Clean Technology Industry Association (OCTIA) and a member of the XPRIZE Brain Trust. Previous to joining MaRS, Tyler spent two decades as a journalist and wrote extensively about Canada’s clean technology sector and global cleantech trends. Most recently he was editor-in-chief of business and sustainability magazine Corporate Knights. He also spent 13 years at the Toronto Star, where he reported on Canada’s energy sector and wrote a popular weekly column on clean energy technologies and trends.
Jenny Yang
Senior Advisor, MaRS Enterprise
An entrepreneur angel investor, Jenny brings vast experience to the Enterprise team. Prior to joining MaRS, she was co-founder and CEO of Aida (acquired by Vision Critical) and Metafor Software (acquired by Splunk). Jenny also worked for BDC Capital where she led investments in technology startups, and was a consultant with both the Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company. Jenny holds a bachelor of applied science in electrical engineering from the University of British Columbia and an MBA from INSEAD.
Jon Dogterom
Senior Advisor, Cleantech
Scale-up experience:
- Co-founder, Sustainable Energy Technologies (now Eguana Technologies)
- Helped take the company public
- Advanced inverter commercialization
- Hydrogenics (now part of Cummins)
- Led business development across fuel-cell and electrolyzer markets
- Built OEM and channel partnerships
- ArcTern Ventures and MaRS Discovery District
- Investor and advisor to high-growth cleantech companies
- Diligence and portfolio go-to-market support
- Venture Services leadership at MaRS
- Currently with Windward Labs, building companies in offshore wind and utility demand response.
- Built unique partnerships among utilities, OEMs, governments and Indigenous nations to de-risk first-of-kind deployments.
- Advisor bridging innovation, capital and policy to accelerate the energy transition.
- Go-to-market strategy for deeptech/cleantech
- Designing pilots that convert to scale customers
- Strategic partnerships, JVs and channels
- Non-dilutive funding and capital strategy
Morgan Lorimer
Senior Manager, Cohort Programs, Innovation Ecosystems
Morgan is the senior manager of cohort programs at MaRS Discovery District, where she leads a portfolio of five accelerator programs supporting the commercialization of early-stage technologies. She works closely with founders, governments and industry to help ventures scale and succeed in global markets, with a focus on inclusive innovation and systems-level impact.
Over the past decade, Morgan has worked across Canada’s startup ecosystem, supporting hundreds of ventures in sectors ranging from AI and advanced manufacturing to health and climate. She has led the design and delivery of high-impact programs that have catalyzed investment, accelerated commercialization and removed barriers for underrepresented entrepreneurs.
Hailee Voegelin
Program Manager, Cohorts, MaRS
Hailee is the program manager for the FOAK (First of a Kind) Lab and the RBC Women in Cleantech program, where she supports founders working to scale and commercialize cleantech solutions. Prior to joining MaRS, Hailee was part of the team at Manifest Climate, a Toronto-based climate tech startup helping organizations navigate climate-related risk and disclosure. At PwC Canada, she worked with financial institutions, utilities and public sector organizations on climate strategy and ESG reporting, translating complex sustainability challenges into actionable solutions.
Oksana Nikitenko
Associate, Cohort Programs
Oksana is an associate on the cohort accelerator programs team at MaRS Discovery District. She leads event planning and community-building initiatives for all accelerator programs, as well as domestic and international market visits. Over the past four years at MaRS, Oksana has excelled in bringing people together through purposeful events and collaborating with teams and partners to create value for early-stage startups across sectors.
