A trio of Black-led businesses walked away from the sixth-annual DMZ Black Innovation Summit with combined winnings of $170,000.
The news: Last week, 10 Black-led startups from across Canada pitched their businesses in front of more than 300 guests. DMZ, the startup incubator housed inside Toronto Metropolitan University, hosted the event.
The top prize went to edtech platform Hey Cleo, which received $100,000 in investment from DMZ Ventures and $10,000 in grant funding from the Black Founders Network for its conversational assessment platform.
Healthtech platform Cuvris, which automates transitional care follow-ups, received $50,000 in investment from DMZ Ventures, while Carbon Saver, which automates building carbon assessments and regulatory compliance for architects, received $10,000 in grant funding from Pitch Better.
From the source: The event intended to drive home that “investing in Black founders is a strategic imperative that drives economic growth and powers the startup economy,” DMZ said in a news release.
The context: The Black Startup Funding Report, released by BKR Capital and Rep Matters earlier this year, found that only 0.15 percent of all venture capital deployed in Canada in 2025 went to Black founders. That figure is 97 percent below where it would be if VC dollars invested were proportional to the total Black population in Canada.
The Black Innovation Summit is the marquee event for DMZ’s Black Innovation Programs, which were created to increase the number of Black-led startups in the tech ecosystem and break the “cycle of inequity.” To date, DMZ claims it has supported over 2,500 Black-identifying founders and distributed over $3.2 million in grants and services.
Final thought: This year’s Black Innovation Summit pitch competition wasn’t as lucrative as its predecessor, which saw a record-breaking $400,000 handed out to three winners. However, the $170,000 prize pool is still a step up from prior years, in which the winners typically split $60,000 or less.
Feature image courtesy DMZ.