Before I became the CEO of the Accelerator Centre, before I joined the board of the Golden Triangle Angel Network (GTAN), I was a founder.
I co-founded Alert Labs with a simple but ambitious goal: to help buildings save water, operate more efficiently, and reduce risk through smart technology. Like most startups, we began with significant uncertainty. But we began with hope, conviction, long days, hard decisions, and a belief in the value we could provide.
But belief alone can’t build a company.
What allowed Alert Labs to grow – what allowed us to hire, to productize, to sell, to scale, was access to early-stage capital at the moments when it mattered most.
That capital didn’t just fund growth. It bought us options and time. Time to learn. Time to recover from mistakes. Time to move from experimentation to execution.
In the earliest days of a startup, capital isn’t a luxury. It’s oxygen.
Without it, founders are forced to make short-term decisions that can compromise long-term outcomes. I’ve lived that tension, and sleepless nights, firsthand. And I’ve seen how dramatically things change when founders have the runway to focus on building with intention instead of operating in constant survival mode.
Canada’s innovation economy is filled with extraordinary talent and world-class research. Regions like Waterloo consistently punch above their weight when it comes to innovation and startup creation. Yet we still see too many promising companies stall or disappear, not because the idea wasn’t strong, but because risk capital came too late or not at all.
A CB Insights analysis of startup post-mortems found that 38% of startups* failed because they ran out of cash or could not raise new capital fast enough, making lack of capital one of the single largest reasons companies don’t survive to reach the scale stage. This statistic should give us pause.
Most first-time founders are also first-time fundraisers. They’re learning how to navigate valuation, dilution, investor expectations, and financial planning at the same time they’re building a product, hiring a team, and trying to land their first customers. The learning curve is steep, and the pressure is relentless.
At the same time, expectations on founders continue to rise. Even at the pre-seed and seed stage, investors increasingly look for financial fluency including clear thinking about runway, unit economics, capital deployment, and risk. These are reasonable expectations, but it does mean that founders need support earlier and more deliberately to be positioned for success.
That belief is what led me to the work I do today.
At the Accelerator Centre, everything we do is rooted in a founder-first philosophy. We exist to help early-stage entrepreneurs move faster with fewer unnecessary obstacles, through hands-on support, experienced guidance, and access to the networks that can change the trajectory of their company.
We focus on what founders consistently tell us they need most: access to early-stage capital, tactical support to hit meaningful milestones, and introductions that lead to real outcomes. Not just conversations, but customers, pilots, partnerships, and investment.
Early-stage investment is about more than a cheque. It’s about enabling better decisions. It’s about giving founders the space to build responsibly, test assumptions, and prove value. It’s about helping strong ideas survive long enough to become strong companies.
First as an investee, and now as a board member at the Golden Triangle Angel Network (GTAN), I see the vital role early-stage investors play in the ecosystem. Angel investors are often the first to believe, the first to back founders before the metrics are polished and the value is obvious. That early belief can unlock both founder confidence and market momentum that compounds for years.
If we want the Waterloo Region to continue producing companies that scale, we need to think strategically about how and when early-stage capital shows up here.
We have the talent. We have the track record. What we need is deeper collaboration between investors, accelerators, institutions, and partners to make early-stage capital more accessible and more impactful.
My daily commitment is to build an epicenter where founders know they can grow, and where investors know they can find the best of the best. And I know there are many others in the Waterloo Region with this same commitment and dedication.
I’ve seen the magic that happens when early-stage capital arrives at the right moment. And I’ve seen what’s possible when a community votes with their dollars on the future successes of dreamers and builders.
Ruth Casselman, CEO, Accelerator Centre, and Founder, Alert Labs,Board Director, GTAN
https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/startup-failure-reasons-top/
