MaRS Growth Acceleration Program (GAP) - MaRS Discovery District

The GAP Advantage

A program built by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs

A roster of proven business leaders roll up their sleeves to guide you through difficult decisions and tough challenges, complemented with personalized support and tailored resources. Meet our team

Level up your entire team

You and your executive team get access to a network of peers and advisors who’ve been there, done that and know what it takes to scale a startup.

Our program, your priorities

Our program has the flexibility to prioritize your schedule when you need the most support - working to tackle your challenges and create an execution plan for long-term growth.

Let’s close the GAP

Strengthen your go-to-market strategy by enhancing your value proposition

Optimize your pricing model to maximize profits, remain competitive and demonstrate ROI to customers

Develop a scalable and repeatable sales process and build a top-performing team that gains traction in the market

Take advantage of PR and branding opportunities to showcase your company’s story in the ecosystem

Attract top talent by building a sought-after company culture, rewards program and recruitment process

Achieve sustainable growth by capturing new markets through international expansion

Access growth accelerating insights and benchmarking data on financial, operational, go-to-market, and expense metrics alongside mentors to support your growth through “company making” insights

Position your company to attract investors and partners

Don’t just take our word for it.

With guidance from Mike Abramsky, we refined and narrowed our TAM for US expansion. The support helped us to rethink how to grow and expand across the US in the most efficient and effective way. There was a distinct focus on minimizing cost, wasted expenditure and increasing likelihood of successful conversion – just a few sessions helped us quickly get where we needed to.

With the wide array of resources available in this program, there is no challenge too big or small, especially when transitioning from a growth to scaling stage. Considering joining? Don’t think twice. The guidance, mentors, and leadership stand out from other innovation ecosystems.

Darren Perlman & Daniel Copeland, Co-founders, Spotwork

Having been part of MaRS for some time, we recently joined the Growth Acceleration Program. A key factor was the unique support and peer connections available not just to myself, but also to the wider team at Plum. This program distinguishes itself by reacting to the pain points you’re currently experiencing and developing a plan of action to work through these challenges together. We’re excited to continue working with a great group of experts to support our journey.

Caitlin MacGregor, CEO, Plum

What sets the support from Kristina Cleary apart is her ability to understand the challenges faced by startups, while still driving impactful results. As an experienced CMO who has been through the trenches while also leading a successful IPO, Kristina has a breadth of knowledge that can help start-ups scale. She has been an exceptional executive coach, guiding me in my ambition of building a revenue-generating marketing department that could harness Bluedot’s strong brand and refine our Go-To-Market approach. She has facilitated invaluable workshops on Demand Generation and helped hone key marketing campaigns. She’s also fostered connections with other marketing leaders through the MaRS Marketing Collective peer group. Kristina’s support has been instrumental in our team’s success. I wholeheartedly recommend this program to anyone looking to elevate their marketing efforts and rapidly build a revenue-generating team!

Jannine Krish, VP Marketing, BlueDot

Tony’s coaching has helped me establish the team structure we needed to achieve our goals. His advice greatly accelerated the creation of an environment where our team members feel enabled and mobilized. It’s been impressive to see how fast we have grown with his guidance.

Kassim Tremblay, VP BD, Sollum Technologies

When we joined the program, we aimed to refine our ideal customer profile, value proposition, and pricing strategy. Working with Mike Abramsky transformed our approach, pushing us to critically assess and strategically think about the differentiated value we deliver.

Mike’s mentorship was a source of profound insight, challenging us at every step to deeply understand our unique business attributes and how they impact our customers. The program was personalized and thoughtfully tailored to our specific needs, emphasizing strategic thinking and a deep dive into our business model.

One of the program’s standout features was its adaptability to our challenges, fostering an environment where active participation translated into profound learning and growth. The sessions led by Mike were particularly valuable, embodying the high-return investment of time and effort we put into the program.

Brizo Leadership Team, Brizo Data

The Portfolio Companies

Program Team

Aoife Geary

Client Engagement Manager

Aoife has contributed to the creation and ongoing development of the Growth Acceleration Program at MaRS, including the operating structure and value proposition to technology companies scaling to $20M in revenue. She leads recruitment by sourcing, analyzing and selecting companies for the program, as well as executing on an account management strategy ensuring high-value client experience to executive teams. Aoife is passionate about meeting new people and building relationships, solving problems, and contributing to the growth of a business. Prior to joining MaRS, Aoife worked at EY where she managed the Entrepreneur Of The Year Program for Ontario.

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

CEO of GuestLogix

Company in turn-around; stabilized and refocused business to supporting 2.4M daily travelers
Launched an innovative customer experience

Noteworthy:

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

Ask me about:

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

Tony Cascio

Senior Advisor, Growth Marketing

Scale-up experience:

Area Vice President at Gartner driving double-digit growth for 30+ consecutive quarters
Managing Partner at ValueSelling Associates, driving sales transformation from start ups, mid-size and Global 500 companies with reliable and predictable sales processes

Noteworthy:

During his tenure at Gartner, the company grew to $3.3B with 30+ consecutive quarters of double-digit growth.

Ask me about:

Sales operations and process playbooks
Sales leadership strategy
Sales pipeline management and forecasting
Client retention and expansion

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

Noteworthy:

Founder of ACCELLE Women in Leadership, which accelerates the personal and professional success of women
Board member of Orion Talent, Trios College

Ask me about:

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

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

Noteworthy:

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

Ask me about:

M&A cultural integration
Building a magnetic employer value proposition
How do you measure up to external HR benchmarks

Faith Tull

Senior Advisor, Talent

Scale-up experience:

Head of Global Talent at Intelex Technologies ULC
Chief People Officer at Randstad Canada

Noteworthy:

Inducted into the Sheridan College, Pilon School of Business Hall of Fame in 2021

Ask me about:

Talent Management & succession planning
Organizational Design & Development
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
HR Strategic Planning

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

CSO at ApoPharma

Growth of drug development programs from 10 staff to over 200.
Successful regulatory approval and marketing authorization

Noteworthy:

Founder of Advanced Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering Consortium - industry-academic partnership
Integrated multi-site contract manufacturing and clinical development facilities

Ask me about:

Biotech strategic partnerships
Therapeutics product development strategies
VC interactions and financing
Product licensing (in-/out)

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

President & CEO, Aquion Inc.

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

Noteworthy:

Investor and Board member of 2 growth ventures
Investment thesis advisor to two PE firms

Ask me about:

Sales process
Product portfolio management
Strategy execution
Operations/manufacturing continuous improvement

Avi Pollock

Scale-up Experience:

President of Grapevine6. Led the sale of Grapevine6 to Seismic, a unicorn and leader in Sales Enablement Software
Scaled an enterprise SaaS company by 10x over 3 years

Noteworthy:

Advisor and Member of the Investment Committee at Luge Capital
Spearheaded the enterprise innovation team at RBC

Ask Me About:

Business Operations Strategy, Planning and Execution including financial planning, strategy development, corporate development and business operations optimization
Go-to- market, channel development and partnership strategies and execution
Building and scaling a successful Customer organization - Services, Success, Support

Keith Thomas

Scale-up Experience:

CEO of Vive Crop Protection, a leading Canadian Agtech company
CEO of Vector Innovations which was grown and sold to AmeriSource Bergen, a Fortune 50 firm
Directly raised $40M+ in financing
Active investor in mid-sized Ontario businesses through Abbeywood Partners

Noteworthy:

Restructured and financed companies on 3 continents
Board director for YPO Gold Toronto, Bioenterprise and Vive
Former Governor and Business Board Chair for the University of Toronto
Former board member for Washington-based CropLife America

Ask Me About:

Entrepreneurial Operating System for scaling your businesses
Setting up a repeatable and scalable sales engine
Mentorship and management coaching, including peer mentoring in YPO-type forums
Financing and pitching for Series B capital

Rick VanSant

Senior Advisor, Cleantech

Scale-up experience:

CEO of UV Pure Technologies, an Artemis Project Top 50 Company
Interim CEO and Board Member of WaterTap
Director, Island Water Technologies & Aclarus Ozone Water Systems
Board Member, waterNEXT

Noteworthy:

Partner at 1440 Capital

Ask me about:

Board Governance
Fundraising
Mentorship

FAQs

What commitment is expected of me and my team?

Is there a cost associated with the program?

What is the timeline of the program?

Who is eligible?

Your company is incorporated in Canada.
Your company has developed an innovative technology.
Your company is in one of the four sectors MaRS supports: cleantech, health, fintech or enterprise software.
You have annual recurring revenue of $5-15 million or $15-50 million total funding raised for biotech, hardtech or equivalent and have the ambition to grow to $20M in revenue within the next three years.
Have a product in the market with strong customer demand.
Building go-to-market capabilities or advance product trials with input from key partners.