The 2025 Elevate Festival in Toronto is less than two weeks away, and one of its signature events is about to return after a long hiatus.
“It’s about walking into a startup’s space and seeing [innovation] come to life.”
The revived Toronto edition of Startup Open House is slated to take place Oct. 9 between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. at the locations of over 500 startups and organizations across the city. Some remote-oriented startups will also use the MaRS Discovery District to showcase their work.
Participants this year include Clio, the incubator DMZ, Loopio, Simple Ventures, Vector Institute, Wattpad, and others.
Startup Open House debuted in 2013 when Busbud CEO Louis-Philippe Maurice and Mission COO Gabriel Sundaram sought to help the startup community open its doors to the public and connect with potential recruits, investors, and like-minded innovators. By 2018, it operated in seven cities and had over 500 startups courting over 10,000 participants.
Elevate acquired Startup Open House in 2019. At the time, Maurice said the project needed a permanent team to help organize and scale its efforts. That year’s open houses took place in three cities, but the COVID-19 pandemic put gatherings on hold from 2020 through 2023.
The event returned to Montréal in May 2024 after the nonprofit Montreal NewTech bought the local rights from Elevate. Elevate runs the Toronto event alongside community promoters TechTO and ElanTech.
At this year’s Montréal event, BetaKit is partnering with TechTO and Sage to host a fireside chat with Shopify president Harley Finkelstein and DavidsTea founder David Segal.
The Toronto Startup Open House returns at a potentially crucial moment for the Canadian tech industry. Startups are navigating economic uncertainty amid the continuing trade war with the United States. The environment has led to layoffs, leadership changes, and ongoing fundraising difficulties as startups compete for limited resources.
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Elevate Festival co-founder and CEO Lisa Zarzeczny told BetaKit via email that the “stakes are incredibly high” for Canada, with “urgent” questions around AI policy, sovereignty, and major projects that she hopes this year’s show will address. She also noted encouraging signs of improving alignment between public and private sectors that could help startups.
“What’s encouraging is that there’s real momentum, with government and private initiatives pulling in the same direction,” Zarzeczny said.
TechTO CEO Marie Chevrier Schwartz told BetaKit that Elevate and ElanTech were eager to collaborate on the return of the community initiative.
Startup Open House was one of my favourite ecosystem events before the pandemic,” she said. “It’s an opportunity for amazing companies to open their doors and for promising talent to discover amazing companies to work at or partner with. I’d think of it as a massive city-wide job fair for Toronto and Montreal.”
Zarzeczny agreed, calling Startup Open House a step beyond conventional panel discussions.
“It’s about walking into a startup’s space and seeing [innovation] come to life,” she said.
BetaKit is an Elevate media partner.
Feature image courtesy Creative Commons. Shared under Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic.