Canada’s Startup Accelerator Programs

With the recent re-branding and re-launch of Extreme Startups, Canada can now boast four formal startup accelerator programs across the country.

GrowLab, Vancouver

Launched by Growlab Ventures Inc. in May 2011.

Program: Five teams/companies per cohort will receive up to $25,000 in seed funding, four months of mentorship, and free office space. Upon completion of the program, companies will have an opportunity to pitch for follow-on funding of up to $150,000 from partnered venture capital firms and select angel investors.

Investors: BDC Venture Capital, iNovia Capital, The Blackberry Partners Fund, Rho Canada, Mohr Davidow Ventures, GrowthWorks Capital, Yaletown Venture Partners, Chris Albinson, and Mike Edwards.

Applications are now open for Spring 2012 Program.

Five companies were selected to participate in Fall 2011 Program: Matygo of Vancouver, a cloud-based learning management system with a global network of educators, learners and resources across multiple campuses; Placeling of Vacouver, platform for sharing the places and explore the world based on experience of others; Sunnytrail, tool for discovering and connecting with Most Influential Customers; Loupe of Toronto, tool to automatically create photo collages from existing photo library; Ecquire of Philadelphia, a sales email plug-in.

Extreme Startups, Toronto

Formerly Extreme University accelerator program was re-branded and re-launched by Extreme Venture Partners in January 2012.

Program: Five companies/teams per cohort which will run for twelve (12) consecutive weeks. Each team will receive $50,000 up front and up to $150,000, a convertible note provided by BDC Venture Capital, upon completion of the program. The program will admit 2 cohorts of 5 companies per year.

Investors: Extreme Venture Partners, OMERS Ventures, Rho Canada Ventures, BlackBerry Partners Fund, and BDC have committed $7 million.

Cohort 1 2012 is open for application.

FounderFuel, Montreal

Launched and funded by Real Ventures

Program: Twenty teams (9 an 11 in two cohorts) in the 12-weeks program will each receive a $10,000 investment, plus an additional $5,000 per co-founder in exchange for 6% equity in the company.

Investor: Real Ventures

The spring 2012 FounderFuel application is closed.

Fall 2011 graduates: Playerize, social and mobile games by providing player installs from diverse channels at huge scale; Oohlala, a mobile platform that helps students take control of their college life by powering the events, conversations and deals on campus; wavo.me, social networks music and videos management tool; seevibes, TV Ratings for social media audience; Vuru, financial statements distiller and analyzer; Willet, social shopping converting tool; Editola, community builder of most accurate view of news stories; Stella, developer of BlameStella, web monitoring; and Player Takesall, a viral campaign & referral management platform for advertisers.

Launch36, Saint John

Launched by propel ICT, a ambitious campaign to launch 36 new technology companies in New Brunswick over the next 36 months. Propel ICT, originally known as propelsj, had launched a similar campaign which resulted in 20 new companies including Radian6 (acquired by salesforce.com, Inc. (NYSE: CRM) for US $350 million), Mariner Partners, Brovada and Ambir.

Program: Mentorship program for a 5-month period; low-cost/no-cost resources like equipment, office space, and communications and support services.

Upon completion of the five-month accelerator program, the participating team is required to contribute a onetime fee of $5,000 upon receiving $50,000 in total financing from third parties.

Applications are open to teams looking to incorporate their business in New Brunswick. Application for the Winter Accelerator program is now closed.