Companies in fourth cohort developing products ranging from software to therapeutic platforms; applications for fifth cohort, in partnership with MLA48, open until May 27, 2016 TORONTO (May 9, 2016) —…
“Over the past few weeks, a few members of our investment team took the seopportunity to map out FinTech companies from coast-to-coast, focusing on those that are developing next generation technologies or technology enabled services,” wrote the OMERS Venture team in a blog post accompanying a new #fintech infographic that lists 89 Canadian businesses operating in the financial start-up sector.
Nvest, part of the third UTEST cohort, in included in the graphic (see below). The infographic’s release was also covered in BetaKit in a story by Doug Soltys noting the sector’s growth in just six months:
What a difference six months makes. Today, Canadian VC giant OMERS Ventures released a similar infographic, tracking 89 different Canadian FinTech startups from Vancouver to St. John’s, essentially a 40 per cent increase. OMERS also noted that these 89 companies have attracted over $1 billion in capital since 2010.
Here’s where OMERS Ventures’ take on where the sector going:
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.
Nvest, a University of Toronto company, is gaining traction as a financial technology (or fintech) start-up to watch. Nvest is part of the third UTEST cohort, which is an early-stage technology incubator program co-directed by MaRS Innovation and U of T (read more about the UTEST program in our portfolio section).
In the last month, Nvest has been profiled in both TechVibes and Investment Executive as a company to watch both as a social network for stock picking and as a tool to bringing accountability to investment recommendations.
Jacob Serebrin writes for TechVibes:
Fredrick Zhou says there’s something wrong with the way people recommend stocks online.
“People don’t take responsibility for their actions, their words and their recommendations,” Zhou says.
He’s the co-founder and CEO of Nvest, a new social network for stock pickers that he says will bring accountability and transparency to a broken system.
Sometimes there’s so much happening with the MaRS Innovation portfolio that it’s hard to stay on top of all the news. Here are a few UTEST program stories that we missed in February.
UTEST company Nvest was featured in a Globe and Mail story, “Next big sector to face disruption? Financial services” by Brenda Bouw. Here’s a quote: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.
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