Laurier Startup Fund

The Laurier Startup Fund is filling a gap in the Toronto-Waterloo Tech Corridor for tech companies seeking seed-stage funding.

Since observing a significant structural challenge in the venture industry, we've earned widespread recognition for the unique student experience we've designed to solve this funding challenge.

The fund was created in 2014 as the brainchild of Mike Stork (BBA ’77), a Laurier alumnus and renowned angel investor in Waterloo Region. Mike and Hennie Stork donated $1 million to launch the fund.

This was followed by a $500,000 gift from the Marsland family, who was recognized in 2021 with the Laurier Philanthropy Award for their tremendous contributions to our students and community.

"The Laurier Startup Fund allowed for an efficient financing process. By partnering with existing and new investors, they quickly got up-to-speed on our company to make an informed investment decision. This strategic approach allowed our executive team to get back to operating the business, and reduced the amount of time we were required to spend in market fundraising. I would highly recommend early stage companies to have a conversation with the Laurier Startup Fund to seek an investment in their financing round."

Mallorie Brodie, Founder, Bridgit

"Having Laurier syndicate with IAF [MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund], and being able to participate pro-rata, made it easier to attract additional fundraising and shortened our time-to-close. Working with Laurier enabled us to spend more time on the business, which enabled us to grow revenue more than three times in 2017 and hire 30 additional Canadian workers."

Kevin Gervais, Founder, Statflo

"The Laurier Startup Fund made a significant contribution to Nicoya's two rounds of financing over the last three years. Syndicating a large number of investors is usually required if you are raising a financing round from Canadian investors, and it can be challenging, but Laurier's excellent due diligence process and reputation helped us achieve our investment target and close the round much faster than if they hadn't been involved. Laurier's $200,000 investment in Nicoya helped us to secure over $2.5 million in additional investment dollars"

Ryan Denomme, Founder, Nicoya Life Sciences

"The expediency of the Laurier Startup Fund has allowed Nix Sensor Ltd. to quickly bring new products to market and to capitalize on new opportunities. We are now selling direct to some of the largest paint companies around the world and have increased our production capacity by over 10x. All this, while still maintaining manufacturing, calibration and packaging here in Canada."

Matt Sheridan, Founder, Nix Sensor

Making Real Life Investment Decisions

The Laurier Startup Fund deals with real-life company and real-life dollars in making investment decisions.

Laurier alum gives students a real money lesson in funding high-tech startups

A Solution to the Tech Corridor Problem

The Problem

A gap in seed-stage funding within the Toronto-Waterloo Tech Corridor inhibiting two distinct groups of stakeholders — companies and seed investors.

Companies

Even when a company finds a lead investor, syndicating the remainder of a round can be time-consuming and challenging. This results in many promising companies raising less than they need to achieve their Series A milestones, leaving them chronically under-capitalized. Founders are then forced to raise capital at inopportune times, taking them away from having a solid focus on operations and potentially stalling growth.

Seed Investors

The gap in seed funding exists because many investors are simply unwilling or unable to justify performing due diligence or portfolio management given the investment-cheque size. The overhead isn't justified.

The Solution

An angel-investor-designed, seed-stage investment fund that features a select group of top undergraduate and Master of Business Administration students paired with top early-stage investors. Laurier's Lazaridis School of Business and Economics fills the seed-stage gap for investors by providing capital and due diligence "horsepower" required to help fully subscribe around the financing.

In summary, companies have better access to the capital they need to achieve their milestones.

Benefits:

Students get invaluable exposure to real-life investments.
Seed investors can leverage additional capital and resources.
Laurier's capital helps further attract more seed investors to a deal, effectively unlocking meaningful capital for these companies.

"The Laurier Startup Fund has been the highlight of my BBA experience. It is a university course like no other. Rather than a lecture, I was able to immerse myself in the real world of early-stage investing ... Overall, this hands-on experience was incredibly stimulating, provided invaluable training and opened my eyes to the world of venture capital financing."

Madison Leitch, BBA '18

"What intrigued me was the opportunity to get a perspective on the other side of the table. Knowing that I may need funding in my future, it interested me to know what venture capitalists are looking for and how they think. I found the entire experience very educational and a rare opportunity as a student. It really completed my understanding of entrepreneurial finance which has been so vital as a new entrepreneur."

Gloria Song, MBA '17

"It pulls the veil back from the entire venture capital world. Students had the opportunity to sit among some of the most powerful business people in the region and were able to see first-hand how angels invest, why they invest, and how you uncover the 'truth' in a young company's value and future. The due diligence we performed on each target went way beyond anything you could learn in a textbook. We were dealing with real companies and real money. A lot was at stake for both the startup founders in need of funding, as well as the team responsible for managing the general investment that comprised the bulk of the Laurier Startup Fund. Those high stakes made the course exciting and pushed everyone to deliver their best work."

John Beresford, MBA '14

"It was an amazing experience ... I would love to keep attending the weekly meetings and sit in on the future presentations as I really enjoy it."

Mike Faulds, BBA '14

An Immersive Student Experience

The Laurier Startup Fund gives students real-life investment experience.

We have designed a process that allows students to receive a unique immersive educational experience, accomplished investors to receive due diligence support, high potential companies to have an efficient investment decision process, and the fund to find high potential companies in which to invest.

Upside Foundation Partnership

The Upside Foundation has an innovative model that empowers the early-stage, high-growth startup sector to give back. The model is powerful: early-stage companies pledge stock options or warrants to the Upside Foundation, convertible into a small portion of equity. When the company has a liquidity event (e.g., IPO, acquisition), the Foundation sells its options for cash and donates the proceeds to registered charities in Canada. The Foundation has no involvement in the donor companies’ operations.

Portfolio

Since the launch of the Laurier Startup Fund in 2014, we have invested in 28 companies within the Toronto-Waterloo Tech Corridor. From apps to healthcare tech, we are investing in Canada's innovation economy and helping companies grow by alleviating the financial pressure of sourcing capital.

Acto

ACTO is a field-training app for life sciences' sales teams that keeps all marketing collateral, messaging, and updated training materials in one place to ensure sales teams can be up-to-date at all times.

Aterlo Networks

Aterlo Networks develops innovative networking solutions for internet service providers, network manager and streaming-video users.

Forcen

Forcen has developed a force film that can be laminated onto any robot or grasper to give it multi-dimensional force sensing without any modification in the grasper or robot. The intended application of this technology is in minimally invasive medical surgeries, robotic surgery and in the industrial robotics sector which would mainly be aerospace and automotive.

Graphite Ventures

The Laurier Startup Fund holds limited partnership units in Graphite Ventures. Graphite manages a $110 million portfolio that invests in early stage technology companies in Canada. The investment professionals of Graphite engage our students in due diligence assignments that enhances their learning in the Startup Fund practicum.

Labscubed

LabsCubed developed the CubeONE automated system that speeds up and increases the accuracy of physical testing of polymers.

Lending Loop

Lending Loop is an online lending platform that helps small businesses access capital at fair interest rates.

NationalProStaff.com

NationalProStaff.com is a social networking platform connecting fishing enthusiasts with brands and anglers.

Nicoya Lifesciences

Nicoya Lifesciences is a versatile biosensor platform that develops sensor products for the biotech, life-sciences and healthcare industries to help in academic research, teaching and commercial research. The platform enables its customers to reduce costs and complexities of scientific instruments and makes them accessible to everyone.

Nix Sensors Ltd

Started as a Kickstarter project, Nix is now a patented handheld device that can measure the colour of any surface and provide that information to the user's smartphone.

ProNavigator

ProNavigator provides a leading conversational AI platform, built for the insurance industry, to guide customers through the purchase and service experience. This is done by combining chat, smart dialogue systems, machine learning and natural language processing.

Proteocyte Diagnostics

Proteocyte Diagnostics designs tests that accurately predict your risk of developing cancer.

Seamless MD

Seamless MD is a patient-engagement platform helping hospitals support patients to recover faster and more effectively after surgery.

Synergy Disc Replacement

The Synergy Cervical Disc is a revolution in Cervical Disc Replacement Technology. Not only does it restore motion to the intervertebral segment, it also restores balance, an extremely critical function of the human spine. The Synergy Cervical Disc pioneers the concept of Balance Control Arthroplasty.

TritonWear

TritonWear has developed a wearable tech that helps competitive swimmers perform at their best by sending data to a tablet, enabling the coach to track the athlete's progress throughout the season.

Vena Medical

Vena Medical is providing physicians with the world's smallest camera capable of going inside veins and arteries to help physicians treat stroke.

Bridgit

Bridgit was founded in 2014 by entrepreneurs Lauren Lake and Mallorie Brodie. Having each grown up in the construction industry, they saw an opportunity to continue the family tradition — but with a modern approach. Bridgit Field was built from the ground up to make construction projects less complicated, and finish faster. With a focus on the field, the app simplifies communications across all people, increases accountability and visibility, and improves quality. Bridgit Bench is their most recent product, designed to eliminate the headaches and spreadsheets of managing construction resource planning.

Chalk

Chalk is an educational management and e-learning platform that is designed to bring a personalized educational experience to each student. Using learning indicators of student success, educators get insights to make data-driven changes.

Cleanslate

Cleanslate is the best way to sanitize mobile devices.

Doorr

Doorr offers an advanced digital mortgage platform that services both mortgages brokers and their customers.

Doorr was acquired by Filogix in October 2020.

Fable

Fable has developed a unique testing methodology that allows it to provide qualitative and quantitative feedback to its customers. It is a novel way of testing usability with people with visual impairments and helps to identify specific Web Content and Accessibility Guideline issues.

FunnelCake

FunnelCake helps marketing professionals use big data to help better understand buyers.

Funnelcake was acquired by Varicent Software in October 2020.

HTBase

HTBase provides IT teams with elegant solutions that help them provide better services with its Composable Infrastructure.

HTBase was acquired by California-based Juniper Networks in November 2018. Read more.

Platform Group

The Platform Group are the developers of the Investor Relations (IR) software called Irwin. This IR platform seamlessly targets potential investors, monitors their trading activity and manages investor interactions and engagement.

Renomii

Renomii is a web-based app that helps to manage all aspects of renovations while providing a permanent audit trail.

SSIMWave

SSIMWave is a software that provides the ability to control video quality for media, communication and the entertainment industry.

Statflo

Statflo is a wireless-dealer analytics platform that improves customer service, grows in-store traffic and increases sales.

Tacit

Tacit Innovations is a mobile app that helps restaurants provide better customer service, allowing customers to browse menus, order and pay all in one app.

TECTA-PDS

TECTA-PDS markets the world’s first, automated, EPA-approved microbiological water quality monitoring system, which lowers overall monitoring costs and improves both water quality and human health. Originally formed in 2003 under the name Pathogen Detection Systems (PDS) as a direct result of the Walkerton disaster in Ontario, Canada, TECTA-PDS was determined to revolutionize microbiological monitoring methods. With over 270 systems now around the world and adopted as the method to test water in over 25 countries, TECTA-PDS is succeeding in achieving its goal of setting the new standard for microbiological monitoring of drinking water quality.

Zoom.ai

Zoom.ai is a digital assistant app that can streamline office work, including: meeting scheduling, workload management, arranging contact lists, setting reminders, storing background information and enabling enterprise managers to improve productivity at work.

The Startup Fund Team

The Laurier Startup Fund benefits from the vast and diverse expertise of five seasons investors led by a faculty supervisor and supported by an alumni investment officer.

David Ceolin

David Ceolin, Founding Partner, Innovation Grade Ventures

Aaron Bast

Aaron Bast, Managing Director, General Partner, Graphite Ventures

Frank Erschen

Frank Erschen, Excecutive in Residence, Communitech

Danielle Brewin Graham

Danielle Brewin Graham, General Partner of Phoenix Fire, Archangel Network of Funds and Co-Founder, The Firehood

Jacqui Murphy

Jacqui Murphy, Chief Marketing Officer, Auvik Networks Inc.

Mike Stork

Mike Stork, Angel Investor

Brian Smith

Brian Smith, Faculty Supervisor, Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University

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