Media Coverage

BioPrinter engineering team wins Canada Dyson Award

September 22, 2014
Susanne Staer
Awards

This story appears courtesy of our colleagues at U of T Engineering News.

The printer was developed by (clockwise from top right) University of Toronto students Arianna Mcallister and Lian Leng; former student Boyang Zhang and University of Toronto associate professor Axel Guenther. (Photo courtesy of the James Dyson Foundation)

While some of us are using the new power of 3D printers to make smartphone cases and chocolate figurines, two engineering students from the University of Toronto are using them to print functional human skin.

On September 18, Arianna McAllister and Lian Leng were named the Canadian winners of the 2014 James Dyson Award for their invention, the PrintAlive Bioprinter.

This story was covered by CBC News and BBC News. The BioPrinter team is working with MaRS Innovation to commercialize their technology; read the news archive.

This 3D skin printer won four U of T engineers a $3,500 Canada James Dyson Award and a chance to compete for a $60,000 international prize (photo courtesy of PrintAlive and U of T news).

The machine – created in collaboration with Professor Axel Guenther, alumnus Boyang Zhang and Dr. Marc Jeschke, head of Sunnybrook Hospital’s Ross Tilley Burn Centre – prints large, continuous layers of tissue that recreate natural skin.

Minuum launches iOS 8 keyboard, expanding product to Apple users

September 18, 2014
Susanne Staer
Media Coverage

Whirlscape, a graduate of the UTEST program’s first cohort (co-managed by MaRS Innovation and the University of Toronto), has launched their little keyboard for big fingers to Apple users.

The software, released to coincide with Apple’s iOS 8 launch, is part of Whirlscape’s larger efforts to develop typing solutions for wearable devices, including smartwatches, Google Glass and other applications.

The Minuum product launch for iOS was covered in TechCrunch, The Next Web and Mobile Syrup, among other tech blogs, and was mentioned in articles dissecting iOS 8’s overall improvements for Apple users (see Yahoo Tech, Mobile Syrup and Digital Trends).

Whirlscape releases Minuum version 2.11, teases for iOS 8 launch

September 3, 2014
Susanne Staer
Media Coverage

Whirlscape, graduates of the UTEST program, made tech headlines last week by releasing a teaser of Minuum, their one-line, mobile keyboard for wearable devices, running on an iPhone.

The announcement and teaser gif were covered in TechCrunch, SlashGear, MobileSyrup and AndroidGuys, among other tech outlets.

From input, the Minuum blog:

We’ve embraced the design philosophies of iOS to refine Minuum into an elegant typing experience centred around our incredibly powerful autocorrect.

Robert Bosch Venture Capital leads $3.75 million Series A round for Flybits

August 20, 2014
Susanne Staer
Flybits

Toronto start-up to advance context-aware mobile experience platform

TORONTO, Canada (August 20, 2014) — Flybits Inc., a Toronto start-up that has created a context-aware experience development platform for mobile environments, has closed a $3.75 million Series A financing. Led by Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH (RBVC) and Trellis Capital Corporation with participation from MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund and Ryerson Futures, Inc., the investment will advance the company’s product development and international growth in the United States and Europe.

This announcement was covered in the National Post, TechVibes, Fortune Magazine‘s Term Sheet Blog (Dan Primack), BetaKit, Yonge Street Media and PEHub.

Since spinning off from Ryerson University in 2012, Flybits has raised a total of $4.05 million to date, including a seed round from MaRS Innovation. Flybits technology has been used in developing smarter cities, connected stadiums, smart corporate campuses, shopping malls, conference venues and even fashion shows. The company also concurrently incubated its technology at the Ryerson Digital Media Zone in Toronto and Vodafone Xone in Redwood City, California.

“Flybits is RBVC’s first investment in Canada,” said Luis Llovera, managing director of Robert Bosch LLC based in Palo Alto, California. “The company has demonstrated a unique and innovative approach in building foundational technology to deliver Contextual Mobility Services for both display-driven devices and for the emerging Internet of Things applications. Flybits’ strong roots in tangible and high impact R&D, their ability to predict the required infrastructure for the industrial Internet and their global entrepreneurial ambitions were some of the reasons we were attracted to this company.”

“Involving high-quality investors such as Bosch and Trellis demonstrates the potential in our unique approach to designing Intelligent Mobility Solutions that are intuitive and scalable,” said Dr. Hossein Rahnama, CEO and founder of Flybits. “In particular, having Bosch as a strategic investor means we leverage their global expertise in software automation, connected communities and sensor technologies as we support new and existing international customers, and scale and develop both our team and our products.”

“Recognizing the Flybits’ platform potential to create next-generation mobile experiences at an early stage, MaRS Innovation worked closely with Flybits to launch the company and secure initial market traction,” said Dr. Raphael Hofstein, president and CEO of MaRS Innovation.

UTEST graduate CoursePeer announces partnership with the Western GTA Summit

August 13, 2014
Susanne Staer
CoursePeer

CoursePeer’s social collaboration intranet solution successful in amplifying members’ and citizens’ collaboration and engagement

TORONTO, Aug. 13, 2014 — If you run a community-led group to discuss key issues facing over 1.4 million people, how do you help them to do the best collaboration possible? What’s the best way to capture and retain their feedback?

After seven years of successfully holding the Western Greater Toronto Area (GTA) Summit—an annual meeting co-chaired by the mayors and business leaders of Mississauga, Brampton, Caledon and Oakville to discuss issues of significant importance to the Western GTA—the Summit’s task forces decided to further enhance their members’ means of collaboration and knowledge retention by adopting an innovative technology platform.

This announcement was covered in Mississauga News, InsideHalton.com and the Brampton Guardian.

CoursePeer, a University of Toronto and MaRS Innovation start-up providing learning and collaboration solutions for enterprise and government, began a successful implementation at the Summit in January 2014.

“I find the program very intuitive, accommodating and simple to use. There is a bit of a fraternity building among the regular users,” said Peter VanSickle, co-chair of Brampton and president of the Brampton Downtown Development Corporation.

BioCentury features Encycle Therapeutics

Encycle Therapeutics, a MaRS Innovation start-up company from the University of Toronto, was featured in a BioCentury emerging company profile by Michael J. Haas.

The company is currently raising a Series A financing round and employs eight people.

Haas’ profile, “Encycle: Oral Macrocycles,” is available behind a pay wall on the BioCentury website.

Here’s a short excerpt:

Macrocycle therapies can block protein-protein interactions that are undruggable with small molecules; however, oral availability and cell penetration remain key challenges. Encycle Therapeutics Inc.’s chemistry platform generates drug-like macrocycles against validated targets to treat diseases for which oral therapies are needed.

Marketed inhibitors of protein-protein interactions include biologics and other molecules large enough to target the wide, shallow surfaces involved in those interactions, but can only bind extracellular targets. Macrocycles can have sufficient size to block protein-protein interactions yet remain small enough to penetrate cells and block intracellular interactions that biologics and small molecules cannot.

Founded on chemistry from University of Toronto for cyclizing peptides and non-peptidic molecules, Encycle’s macrocycles incorporate three features that are not all found in other companies’ compounds — the absence of sulfur, the presence of intramolecular hydrogen bonding motifs, and an upper limit on size, according to President and CEO Jeffrey Coull.

CBC’s Lang and O’Leary Exchange features Whirlscape’s Minuum keyboard

August 1, 2014
Susanne Staer
Media Coverage

UTEST graduate Whirlscape, makers of the wearable, one-line Minuum keyboard, were recently featured on CBC’s Lang and O’Leary Exchange.

Minuum has also broken the 100 billion pixels mark in screen space saved for its users. Read about it on input, the Minuum blog.

Founder and CEO Will Walmsley was interviewed by Amanda Lang. The footage was also made available on CBC News, and was included in CBC’s weekly summary of the week’s top business stories. Watch the video.

Here’s an excerpt:

Typing on a smartphone is hard enough – imagine doing it on a smartwatch or other wearable device.

A Toronto startup called Minuum is trying to solve that problem with a tiny virtual keyboard.

It’s a downloadable app costing $3.99 that combines a tiny keyboard with a powerful autocorrect that helps you get the message out, no matter how you punch it.
[. . .]
“What really drives us to work on this technology is the future potential it has. The core concept is a keyboard that is just one line of characters, which means if you can imagine typing on a line anywhere, that can be a keyboard,” he said.

The Varsity on UTEST and start-up culture at U of T; Whirlscape launches new Minuum smartwatch demo

“Start-up culture is fast taking hold at U of T, with an array of incubators and accelerators providing student entrepreneurs the resources and mentorships required to get their businesses up and running,” writes Ameya Charnalia of The Varsity, the University of Toronto’s student newspaper.

Charnalia’s article focuses on new student-focused incubators, such as the UTEST program, which provide entrepreneurs cash, access to in-house expertise, working space and mentorship to advice their ideas.

It appeared in the same week that recent UTEST graduate Whirlscape released a new demo video showing their Minuum keyboard technology running on a LG G watch, which is also an Android Wear device. The announcement was covered in TechCrunch, engadget, Pocketnow, Android Police, SlashGear, BGR, Mobile Syrup, 9to5Google, and DroidLife, among other tech blogs.

WaveCheck campaign part of new study on crowdfunding medical research

MI’s Fazila Seker also interviewed in National Post article on what prompts medical researchers to consider crowdfunding

The WaveCheck crowdfunding campaign, which raised $53,390 on Indiegogo to support clinical trials for a clinical technique invented by researchers at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and Ryerson University, was included in a new Canadian-led study on the merits of crowdfunding to support cancer and rare diseases.

“Crowdfunding drug development: The state of play in oncology and rare diseases,” was published in Drug Discovery Today‘s June issue.

MaRS Innovation has confirmed with lead author Professor Nick Dragojlovic of the University of British Columbia that WaveCheck was among the campaigns included in the study.

Dr. Rafi Hofstein in Biotechnology Focus: What will it take to regain Canada’s biotechnology leadership?

**Dr. Raphael Hofstein**, president & CEO, MaRS Innovation.

Biotechnology Focus, a compendium of the Canadian life sciences industry, has published a guest column by MaRS Innovation President & CEO, Dr. Raphael Hofstein.

The article explores the role life sciences assets, financing and talented management–the three Ms–must play in revitalizing Canada’s biotechnology sector:

At the close of the 20^th century, Canada was perceived as a key contributor to the success of the global biotech voyage.

You know what happened next: the mechanisms to fund early ventures collapsed together with the collapse of the Canadian venture capital industry Finding suitable investment for early-stage technologies became incredibly challenging. Facing a dearth of opportunity, talented management sailed for other harbors.

It’s satisfying that on the eve of the 2014 BIO Convention, some indicators suggest to me that we are witnessing a rebound. But to accelerate our pace while holding this bearing, Canada needs to address certain strategic elements.

At MaRS Innovation, we call them the three Ms: merchandize, management and money.