by Taylor McAuliffe & Hessie Jones
As 2023 comes to a close, we want to take the time to celebrate all the amazing milestones we’ve achieved and witnessed this year! We are proud of both our own hard work this year and the hard work of all the startups that we have had the privilege to support. Amidst the landscape of technology and innovation, we continue to take steps to further develop initiatives to enhance our support for startups founders. Join us as we reflect on all the successes in 2023.
1 New Podcast – Tech Uncensored
Launched in the fall of this year, Tech Uncensored, Crucial Analysis in Tech, is Altitude’s bi-weekly podcast hosted by Hessie Jones. The podcast explores emerging news, and relevant topics that startups care about. We speak to subject matter experts, founders and advisors in Investment, including Venture Capital and Equity Crowdfunding, and across Industry, including Clean Tech, Biotech, Generative AI, Blockchain, Web3, Privacy, Security etc. who weigh in on the challenges that startup founders face today, as well as the profound opportunities that come with emerging tech and market adoption.
Tech Uncensored has published 45 episodes and surpassed 700 subscribers since launching earlier this year. To listen to our latest episodes or subscribe to stay up to date on new episodes, visit us on LinkedIn or anywhere you listen to your podcasts, including Spotify, Google Podcast, Amazon Music and more.
2 Major Milestones – VISA Program and Brampton Angels
Startup VISA Clean Tech Market Ready Program
Altitude is thrilled to have been approved for the Startup VISA Program in partnership with BHive this year. Our 7-month Startup VISA Clean Tech Market Ready Program helps clean tech founders from abroad launch and scale their companies in Canada. Founders have access to our exclusive Market Readiness and Investor Readiness programs that will teach them everything they need to take their startup from ideation, to market, to a successful exit. As per Pam Banks, Executive Director,
“With BHive’s international reach and Altitude Accelerator’s expertise in accelerating cleantech startups, we’re unlocking a new era of collaboration, entrepreneurship, and job creation in Brampton. Together, we will redefine what it means to be an innovation-driven city.”
Brampton Angels
Another major milestone to celebrate is the launch of Brampton Angels. Altitude Accelerator is powering a new network of accredited investors seeking investment opportunities in promising early-stage technology companies. Located in the center of the Waterloo-Toronto innovation corridor, Brampton Angels focuses on helping early-stage companies reach new heights and become market leaders by providing founders with access to investment and mentoring expertise in our community. Since launching in March of this year, Brampton Angels has hosted 5 investor meetings and 18 investor presentations.
Pam Banks, touches on the importance of this new role Brampton Angels is playing in forging strong partnerships between entrepreneurs and investors that will help accelerate growth in the innovation ecosystem,
Brampton Angels will be an important pillar for community growth. Innovation hubs rely on having the right combination of ideas, talent and investment. We have all those components here – in spades!”
New Startup Programs Launched – RevUp and Growth Essentials
This year, Altitude added two brand new startup programs to our program offerings, RevUp and Growth Essentials. Launching earlier in the spring, both programs have already been a success with 6 graduating startups.
RevUp: is a program designed to help founders take their idea to the next level. The RevUp program consists of 10 self-directed online learning modules, with each module focusing on a specific topic or subject that is important for a startup’s long-term success. Some topics explored include creating your value proposition, developing a strong business model, building the right team and financial projections and key metrics. With this program, you have access to Altitude’s resources and our team of Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIRs) who have decades of experience in launching, investing in, and exiting successful startups across all sectors and industries.
Growth Essentials: is a self-paced program focused on helping early-stage startups grow. With a library of curated videos from our competitive Incubator and Investor Readiness programs, founders can learn from experienced professionals on a range of topics, including sales, marketing, product dev, and investment learning modules. Growth Essentials features all the information founders need to go-to-market effectively.
4 Client Successes
We are thrilled to spotlight five exceptional companies who have made their mark in 2023. These startups have distinguished themselves by making significant strides in scale and growth.
Mosea
As a recent graduate of our Incubator program, Mosea is one of our shining stars of 2023. Since launching a new app in August of this year, Mosea has soared to $70k MRR with over 11,000 users and is growing rapidly at 30% MOM. Mosea is an app designed for effortless money transfer, collection from groups and splitting bills. While currently focused on the university student demographic, with a runway till Q2 2025, the three co-founders have their eyes set on big things and are looking towards a Series A raise late next year.
2. Brickeye
Founded in 2014, Brickeye has been accelerating digital transformation in construction for over a decade. Led by CEO Tim Angus, Brickeye is an end-to-end construction risk and productivity platform on a mission to digitize the job site on one unified IoT platform, providing unprecedented visibility and actionable insights to improve how the industry builds and adds value globally.
This past year, Brickeye has grown to new heights with 30 employees. Brickeye also closed $10M in funding this fall, with participation from BDC Capital’s IP-backed Financing Fund and Graphite Ventures, with additional funding from existing investors GreenSky Ventures, Brightspark, EDC, and MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund.
3. Neptune Nanotechnologies
Neptune Nanotechnologies has had an impressively productive 2023. Founded by CEO Aaron Guan, Neptune is a company set on revolutionizing the materials industry by transforming waste into nanocrystals. Earlier this year, Neptune successfully concluded their seed round fundraising and has received over $2,000,000 in total funding, including $1,800,000 equity investment led by CAA with follow-on investment from Ontario Centre of Innovation and Liquid Metal VC in addition to a number of other private investors. With this funding, Neptune has developed a pilot plant for manufacturing nanocrystals at a scalable level.
To learn more about the work Neptune Nanotechnologies is doing to solve the plastic problem, check out this recent article.
4. Hybrid Power
2023 was a huge year for Hybrid Power Solutions as they officially became a publicly traded company on the Canadian Securities Exchange. Hybrid Power produces patent pending portable battery systems and customized energy solutions for a variety of industrial markets, including the mining, construction, railway, marine and military sectors. Founder, Francois Byrne, took to LinkedIn to celebrate his company’s successful IPO and reflected on almost a decade of hard work,
“This journey has been at times incredibly challenging, but also immensely rewarding…our stock is live and trading under ‘HPSS’ on the CSE. The future is fuel-free, baby!”
5. Graduating Cohorts
In 2023, we had 6 graduating cohorts with 27 startups graduating from our RevUp, Incubator, Investor Readiness and Growth Essentials programs. Way to go!
- 2023 RevUp Graduates – GigOne, Incliner, Magnify Access, LinkUp, DavidLabs
- 2023 Growth Essentials Graduates – PosterPitch
- 2023 Incubator Program Graduates – Anchorsbook, Progress Score, EI Amplified, Mizu Inc., Vivo Surgery, Easy Canada
Our Incubator Program is a 12-week self-paced program with concentration on sales and marketing for companies looking to grow and scale. The program also involves sessions on cybersecurity and privacy, corporate government and capital raising, as well as 1:1 advising from our team of Entrepreneurs in Residence. Heads up: our Incubator Program is getting a revamp in 2024 and will be changing names to ‘Market Readiness’.
- 2023 Investor Readiness Graduates – Infaque, Admissions Overseas, Afiya Beauty, Rollup, ROUN Beauty, CO2L, Aquacell, Instacars, HeroAI, ReadyBe
Our Investor Readiness program is an invite-only, hybrid self-paced and coaching program designed to uncover opportunities and fine tune your investor presentations in preparation for a raise. This 6-week program includes video curriculum on a range of topics including, Data Room Fundamentals, Valuation & Assumptions, Cap Tables and IP Coaching, as well as access to our investor Champion Panels.
And…15 Champion Panels
As part of our Incubator program, founders have the opportunity to practice their pitch to a panel of experts across a range of industries and receive valuable feedback through each of the three Champion panels we offer. In 2023, we hosted 15 Champion Panels, with 37 different presentations from 28 companies.
- 360 Virtual Advisory Board: A panel of experts from software, hardware, and sales channels that provides entrepreneurs and startups advice on business model and go-to-market strategy.
- Regional Alliance: A panel of organizations and subject matter experts involved in the commercialization process of new and emerging technologies. This panel offers introductions to committed resource providers.
- Investment Review Panel: A panel of finance and investor experts that provides a targeted review of clients, realistic market feedback and connections to appropriate funding opportunities.
Thanks to everyone who participated!
Curb the Rain, Tejo, Phamacia2go, TruEV, BK Electronics, Annex Go Fetch, CloudCure, DocClik, Appgen Studio, Motion Meetings, Borrum Energy Solutions, Lytup, Genie AI, Easy Canada, Telemed MD, CxSphere, Artintech, Investipal, Quanta Vici, Knnct, Subskryb, vGIS, Koch, PoolPal, Green Apple Gives, Biofect Innovations, Admissions Overseas and Aportio Technologies.
Future Forecast: Our Big Winner for 2024
Hero AI is set to make significant strides in 2024. Founded by Dr. Devin Singh, Hero AI is an early-stage health tech company that is transforming the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and the healthcare industry. At Hero AI, their process involves taking real-time streaming health record data and inputting it into decision logic or machine learning algorithms. The output is then directed to highly customizable front-end user interfaces, including web apps, patient apps and provider apps.
With the healthcare industry facing mounting challenges, AI-driven solutions offer immense potential for positive change. Devin Singh and Hero AI strive to reshape the healthcare landscape, ensuring that AI innovations close health gaps rather than widen them. Despite regulatory challenges, Dr. Singh shares his optimism about Hero AI and the future of AI in healthcare,
All the uphill battles that you were talking about around privacy, exploring what the regulatory boundaries are, access to the data… we’ve got really great foundations in place. Now, this year is all about deployment and impact”.
Here at Altitude, we are proud to support Dr. Singh and the strides he is making to change the future of Canadian healthcare. We are sure of great things to come in 2024. To learn more about the work Hero AI is doing check out our recent article or listen to Dr. Singh’s episode of Tech Uncensored.
Altitude Accelerator supports early-stage founders to their first raise. We have an incredible network of engaged volunteers and investors who have been instrumental in helping many of our startup companies scale. If you want to learn more about what Altitude can do for you, find out more about our programs http://164.90.152.14/altitudeweb/programs-1/
To all our partners within the Brampton Innovation District, our amazing advisors and Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, and innovative startup companies, we wish you a joyous holiday season. Please stay safe and all the best for 2024!