INNOVATE™ Toronto

The key to innovation is seeing opportunity in unlikely places. For Antibe Therapeutics, the place is a cloud of noxious gas; the prize is a new generation of painkillers. In the wake of the opioid crisis, there is an urgent need for safer analgesics. Almost one-in-10 Canadians prescribed opioid medications...

Fashion’s Pollution ProblemThe $2.5 trillion fashion industry is one of the top-most polluting industries in the world, generating 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, the heavy reliance by the industry on synthetic, petroleum-derived, fabrics such as polyester, is projected to create over a quarter of the world’s carbon emissions...

Diabetes affects more than 422 million people worldwide, and according to the World Health Organization, the disease will be the seventh leading cause of death in 2030. Patients with insulin-dependent diabetes use insulin therapy to control hyperglycemia (high blood sugar levels). Unfortunately, the most significant side effect of insulin therapy...

“Regenerative medicine is the future, and not only is it the future, it’s a branch of medicine that Canada and the province of Ontario are actually quite good at.” – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau When it launched onto the scene in 2011, there was nothing else like it. Even today, ten years...

Amplify Capital is a Canadian-based investment fund that provides early-stage companies long-term equity solutions and strategic support to develop their business to solve challenges affecting our future. Led by veteran private equity executive Kathryn Wortsman, Amplify Capital invests exclusively in impact ventures that demonstrate significant, measurable impact alongside market-rate returns....

Since its inception, TBDC has worked with thousands of entrepreneurs by helping them build and grow their ideas. TBDC helps international entrepreneurs aggressively scale up and choose Canada to grow their businesses. To date, TBDC has helped over 9,000 domestic and international entrepreneurial businesses establish themselves in Toronto and Ontario...

Docsie has one simple mission: helping businesses everywhere to write better documentation using reader insights, and removing barriers around web publishing and team collaboration.   Docsie brings product, support and development teams together, alongside their tools, in one AIpowered knowledge management system. Docsie breaks down silos and creates a fluid,...

Co-founded by University of Toronto graduates, Bashir Khan, Ayaan Haider and Shayaan Haider in 2018, AirMatrix builds the world’s most precise drone road systems. AirMatrix is innovating at the bleeding edge and is affiliated with Communitech, MaRS, IRAP and DMZ. AirMatrix is a member of Transport Canada’s action team on...

At Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS (JLABS), our goal is to provide the optimal environment for emerging life science companies to catalyze growth by exposing them to vital industry connections, delivering entrepreneurial programs, and providing a capital-efficient, flexible platform where they can transform the scientific discoveries of today into...

In the spring of 2020, just as the devastating first wave of the pandemic began to hit businesses, healthcare and our communities, the TELUS Pollinator Fund for Good was born. At $100 million, the Pollinator Fund is one of the world’s largest corporate impact funds. The Pollinator Fund invests in...

OMERS Ventures has been backing early-stage technology companies for more than a decade.   Currently managing CAD$2 billion, with close to 60 investments in disruptive technology companies across North America and Europe, we are proud to support some of the world’s biggest thinkers and builders.   Spanning three countries, OMERS...

Owning one of Canada’s most successful Healthcare Recruiting Agencies, Workwolf’s Cofounder and CEO, Erik Simins, spent years working with enterprise companies to help establish more efficient ways to identify, attract and hire talent. Overseeing thousands of hiring cycles, one thing was very clear; resumes were the prominent source of data...

Since 2013, Ecopia AI has been on a mission to create a digital twin of the world using artificial intelligence (AI). Originally spun out of a Ph.D project at the University of Waterloo, Ecopia’s maps have grown from detailing a single small city to mapping entire continents while evolving from...

INNOVATORS, SCHOLARS & EXPERTSCIFAR is a global leader in the research community, bringing together top researchers across disciplines to advance our understanding of the most complex and far-reaching questions. Our researchers establish new fields of inquiry — reimagining our health, our understanding of the Universe, the prosperity of our societies,...

You know how to lend. But, to whom do you lend, when you don’t have the right data? Too many business lenders are constrained by partial data and manual processes. And, speed is paramount. Keren Moynihan, CEOBoss Insights empowers fintechs and lenders to respond faster, make underwriting decisions more quickly,...

Founded in 2011, NEXT Canada was built on the vision of supporting the growth trajectory of aspiring and scaling entrepreneurs. With the support and leadership from NEXT Canada’s Cofounders and Founding Patrons, NEXT has grown to become one of Canada’s top entrepreneurial networks, with graduates achieving significant milestones in their...

At BlueRock, our mission is to create authentic cellular medicines to reverse devastating diseases, with the vision of improving the human condition.   Built on the research of some of the world’s foremost experts in induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) biology, BlueRock has revolutionized and scaled methods for creating authentic...

The Michener Institute of Education at UHN is the only institution in Canada devoted exclusively to applied health sciences education, Michener is Canada’s first-ever merger between a hospital and a post-secondary health education institution and the only post-secondary institution devoted exclusively to specialized applied health education in the country.  ...

The Foundation awards the annual Canada Gairdner Awards to leading scientists from around the world whose discoveries have had a major impact on scientific progress and human health. The awards are Canada’s only globally recognized international scientific prize. Since 1959, more than 400 scientists from 40 countries have received a...

The transportation industry is amid one of the most important revolutions since 1886, when Karl Benz invented the first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine (ICE). 135 years later, electric vehicles (EV) are now the leading focus of automotive engineering and innovation around the world. As with any new...

Portage Ventures (“Portage”) is a venture investor that partners with some of the world’s most innovative financial technology companies. Portage is the venture capital arm of multi-asset class alternative investment firm Sagard. It was cofounded in 2016 by Paul Desmarais III (Executive Chairman and CEO of Sagard) and Adam Felesky...

For the company now known as GoBolt (formerly Bolt Logistics), what originally began in Toronto in 2017 as a small, but mighty team of three focused on providing concierge-esque consumer storage, quickly and organically evolved into a much larger nation-wide operation providing fulfillment and last-mile  logistics for local ecommerce merchants...

As digital transformation accelerates across industries in Canada, companies are looking to build a much stronger digital foundation to fundamentally change the way their business works. Artificial Intelligence (AI), hybrid cloud and quantum computing are playing a significant part in helping private and public organizations further advance and contribute to...

U of T consistently ranks as one of the world’s Top 25 universities, and it’s the hub of Toronto’s innovation ecosystem. For nearly 200 years, some of society’s most daring thinkers have gathered here to unlock human potential and bring about positive change. It’s where Frederick Banting, Charles Best, James...