angel investors

MaRS Innovation sponsoring Angels’ Den competition

September 22, 2015
Susanne Staer
Awards

Prima IP co-sponsoring the Ryerson University and St. Michael’s Hospital event

When your business demands staying current with the newest inventions springing up across 15 academic members, keeping pace with what’s happening is half the challenge.

That’s part of the reason why MaRS Innovation and Prima IP are sponsoring winners of an Angels’ Den competition involving the Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Science and Technology (iBEST).

iBEST is a partnership between Ryerson University and St. Michael’s Hospital that brings together Ryerson’s engineering and science strengths with St. Michael’s biomedical research and clinical expertise. The contest, which took place on June 26, 2015, riffs on the popular Dragon’s Den format.

“As a guest judge for the iBEST trainee competition this year, I reviewed a lot of thought-provoking ideas and MaRS Innovation congratulates all of the 2015 award winners,” says Dr. Fazila Seker, director of physical sciences. “Many of our portfolio technologies have their origins in this type of collaboration between researchers and medical staff, which is why we’re so excited to sponsor this competition. Fostering these types of relationships is vital to Toronto’s commercialization ecosystem.”

For the 2015 award period, MaRS Innovation will provide the competition’s winners with upfront commercialization consultation services to help shorten the time it may take for their ideas to reach the market. These services will be offered in collaboration with the technology transfer offices within St. Michael’s Hospital and the Vice-President of Research and Innovation office at Ryerson University as appropriate. In partnership with Prima IP, MaRS Innovation will also cover the initial patent application preparation and filing for the top two awardees of the iBEST event. Future award winners will receive similar support.

“Canada’s future economy depends on programs that encourage and facilitate innovation allowing Canada to remain competitive in the global marketplace and attract foreign investment,” said Marcelo König Sarkis, principal, founder and senior patent agent at Prima IP. “We are passionate in our support for Canadian inventions from the initial research phase to start-up and beyond.”

Y Combinator-backed Whirlscape closes $500,000 seed funding round

Minuum keyboard creators accelerate wearable device input technology development

Screen Shot 2014-01-21 at 11.26.56 AM — Whirlscape, Inc., creators of the Minuum keyboard, closed an seed funding round of $500,000.

TORONTO, Canada (February 6, 2014) — Whirlscape Inc., creators of Minuum, “the little keyboard for big fingers,” have closed an investment seed round for just over $500,000 (USD). Y Combinator, FundersClub, BDC Venture Capital, and a dozen other prominent angel investors have contributed to the round.

Whirlscape’s plans for the capital involve innovating beyond its participation in Silicon Valley’s start-up accelerator Y Combinator. Whirlscape also aims to consolidate the success of its Minuum keyboard for Android touchscreen devices—available on Google Play—whose positive reviews have boosted sales since the New Year.

See articles of Whirlscape’s seed funding announcement by Darrell Etherington in TechCrunch, Ian Hardy in BetaKit, Rob Lewis in TechVibes and Global University Venturing.

Since launching the Minuum keyboard in 2013, Whirlscape has grown to a dedicated team of 10 working to enable new ways to type, and to unify input methods across the rapidly emerging field of wearable and ubiquitous computing devices such as smart watches and Google Glass. Whirlscape has recently demonstrated the Minuum keyboard working on Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smart watch.

“Our vision for the future of hyper-personalized input devices involves letting you choose your companion device for its input capabilities,” said Will Walmsley, CEO of Whirlscape. “By simplifying the concept of the keyboard, we allow text entry to occur in places where it was previously unthinkable, removing barriers to communication. Your keyboard can now be anywhere you want it to be, out of the way, yet immediately accessible.”

Whirlscape, Inc. was in the first cohort of UTEST, the MaRS Innovation and University of Toronto accelerator program for early-stage technologies. UTEST is now accepting applications for their third cohort.

Dr. Raphael Hofstein in Biotechnology Focus: Building a catalytic reaction across Canada’s Life Sciences Sector

Biotechnology Focus, a compendium of the Canadian life sciences industry, has published a guest column by MaRS Innovation President & CEO, Raphael Hofstein. The article explores the role of catalysis…

VP Joel Liederman’s Financial Post article on mitigating innovation risk

September 23, 2012
Susanne Staer
Media Coverage

Joel Liederman, vice-president (physical sciences) — Joel Liederman, MI’s vice-president of business development and physical sciences

MaRS Innovation’s Vice-President of Business Development and Physical Sciences Joel Liederman, has published an article in the Financial Post about strategies to mitigate risk within the innovation space.

The article, titled “Innovation Success Means Mitigating Risk,” is featured in the newspaper’s Productive Conversations section.