MaRS Innovation portfolio company completing Phase 1 human clinical trial of drug to prevent dermal scarring VANCOUVER (February 16, 2016) — Accel-Rx Health Sciences Accelerator (Accel-Rx), a Centre of Excellence…
TORONTO, ON (August 10, 2015) — Toronto-based law firm Aird & Berlis LLP (A&B) has become the sponsoring legal partner to the University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology Program (UTEST).
This partnership was covered in TechVibes, Law Times and the Financial Post‘s Legal Post blog.
UTEST is a 12-month incubation and acceleration program co-managed by the University of Toronto (U of T) and MaRS Innovation that allows selected U of T-affiliated early-stage startup companies to incorporate, use office space, receive mentorship and access $30,000 in funding, with opportunities for follow-on funding from MaRS Innovation.
In 2014, UTEST was named one of Canada’s most promising start-up accelerators in an online series by BetaKit, a digital publication that covers Canadian technology.
“We are thrilled to partner with A&B and leverage their legal expertise for our startups and emerging companies,” said Kurtis Scissions, who co-directs UTEST with MI’s Mike Betts. “To date, 17 companies, including Granata Decision Systems, Whirlscape, Crowdmark, eQOL and TrendMD, have successfully graduated from our program. We look forward to adding A&B’s Startups Team of lawyers to our mentorship group for the UTEST program, beginning in 2015.”
Editor’s note: As of today, the University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology (UTEST) program, which MaRS Innovation co-directs with the University of Toronto, is accepting applications for Cohort 4. The full application is available on the UTEST website.
In meantime, it’s our pleasure to reprint Brianna Goldberg’s “day-in-the-life-of-an-entrepreneur” feature on Cohort 3 company Nvest, published for U of T News.Jackie Yan focuses on tweaking his PowerPoint slide deck despite the chaos unfolding around him.
Near the entrance to the office space he shares with teams from the six other startups that are part of the UTEST accelerator program, a phone spits distorted tones of an investment-related conference call at Hanna Tomory, CEO of a fatigue-management start-up called Syncadian, as she scratches a list of notes.
A few steps down the hall, Marissa Wu, founder of the digital sports coaching wearable startup called Onyx Motion, goes over presentation notes with her co-founder Vivek Kesarwani. They discuss the finer points of athlete training with the intensity of so many layup drills performed on the basketball net propped against the wall of their desk space.
Across the table in the conference room where Yan is feverishly editing his slides, James McCrae pieces together 3D sculptures of horses, wasps and dinosaurs created with software from his start-up, FlatFab.
“We’re hoping to make more stable structures with our 1.0 design, maybe integrating finger-joints,” McCrae explains as he prepares to demo FlatFab’s wares for a video crew from the Privy Council Office in Ottawa, Ontario.
The videographers are producing a video about MaRS Innovation today, which co-directs the UTEST accelerator program with the University of Toronto, and are capturing b-roll of UTEST founders at work on their ventures. With seven companies currently sharing the working space, there’s always something happening.
TORONTO (Dec. 2, 2014) — The University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology (UTEST) incubator, co-directed by U of T’s Innovations & Partnerships Office (IPO) and MaRS Innovation, has announced its third cohort of computer science start-up companies.
Betakit and Electronic Products &Technology covered this announcement; TechVibes featured Syncadian and Onyx Motion in recent features. The U of T magazine also featured Syncadian and CEO Hanna Janossy in this recent profile.
The five companies and the diverse sectors they target are (scroll for full company descriptions):
Past graduates include Whirlscape, TrendMD, Crowdmark, eQOL and Granata Decision Systems, among others.
The University of Toronto will receive $3,056,000 in funding over two years from the Ontario government to increase its training and support for student entrepreneurship.
The funding is part of the Campus-Linked Accelerator Program (CLA), announced today by Reza Moridi, Ontario’s Minister of Research and Innovation, and Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities.
“Fostering the entrepreneurial spirit among students is a key component of Ontario’s Youth Jobs Strategy, through programs that help transfer their ideas and skills to the marketplace while creating rewarding careers,” said Minister Moridi. “By partnering with colleges and universities to support entrepreneurship, we are ensuring our province’s business leaders of tomorrow are getting the support they need to succeed today.”
With this funding, U of T will continue to build on its long track record of success in this area by expanding the entrepreneurship opportunities it offers to students, primarily through its four principal accelerators: The Creative Destruction Lab (Rotman School of Management), The Hatchery (Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering), The Impact Centre (Faculty of Arts & Science), and UTEST (The Innovation and Partnerships Office, produced in partnership with MaRS Innovation).
The CLA program provides critical funding that enhances the support U of T and MaRS Innovation offer to our current UTEST companies,” said Kurtis Scissons, co-director of UTEST. “It also allows UTEST to expand to work with a greater number of student entrepreneurs in computer software, and is a catalyst for other UT CLA’s to combine their entrepreneurship efforts in a synergistic, complimentary way.”
Jeff Cates’ op-ed in the Globe and Mail‘s Small Business/Digital Innovation section on June 19, 2014 argues that incubators have a key role to play in fostering innovation, entrepreneurship and growing new industries in Ontario.
Cates states this is particularly true when incubators when they provide programs and services to help young entrepreneurs succeed.
The University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology program (UTEST), co-managed with MaRS Innovation, is one such program. UTEST is set to announce its third cohort within the next month.
The University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology (UTEST) program's second cohort is coming to a close, with applications for a third cohort open until April 17. The incubator program, a University…
University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology (UTEST) graduate Whirlscape Inc. released a video on February 25, 2014 showing how their Minuum keyboard can make typing on Smart TVs and consoles easy.
UTEST is currently accepting applications for its third cohort. Apply now.
Minuum, the “little keyboard for big fingers” is making waves in wearable technology with their disambiguation algorithm and advanced language modelling, which can be used on Android devices and smart watches.
Read Darrell Etherington‘s article about Minuum on Smart TVs and consoles in Tech Crunch and coverage in Geeky Gadgets, an online technology review and resource publication. You can also read more about the U of T science behind Minuum here.
The University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology accelerator program (UTEST) is now accepting applications for a third cohort until April 17, 2014.
Applicants must be current students or faculty at U of T, or have graduated within the last two years.
UTEST has just launched a new website with complete application information about the early-stage incubator and a link to the application form:
The 12-month program allows selected U of T affiliates to access office space, mentoring and $30,000 in funding, with opportunities to access follow-on funding from MaRS Innovation later on.
Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus, West Tower
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Toronto, ON M5G 0C6
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