Provincial funding agency Alberta Innovates is making a collective $13.6-million investment into 19 projects meant to strengthen the province’s technology ecosystem.
Among the recipients are not-for-profit organizations Alberta IoT Association, which is receiving $750,000, and Movement51 (M51), which secured $125,000.
Formed in 2019 by a group of IoT-associated companies, Alberta IoT is a not-for-profit organization that aims to support the growth of Alberta’s IoT and emerging technology sectors.
500 Startups Incubator received $400,000 for its angel investor training program specific to Alberta.
Alberta IoT’s funding will go towards its “Science Park,” a platform that uses AI-powered algorithms to pair people and companies looking for specific technological assets or talent with the people who can provide it, and vice versa. The organization was previously led by Brenda Beckedorf, whose departure was announced last week.
M51 is a sister organization to women-focused venture capital fund The51. Established in 2021, M51 aims to address financial inequalities that affect women and gender-diverse people across Canada. Its initiatives include leveraging partnerships to provide opportunities for woman-identifying and gender-diverse people to acquire tools, practice skills, and build their financial confidence.
The funding that M51 secured from Alberta Innovates will go towards its financial literacy workshops for women entrepreneurs called the Financial Feminism Investing Lab: Founder Edition.
M51 previously received over $480,000 from Prairies Economic Development Canada in December 2022 to deliver the Investor Edition of its financial literacy workshops for women.
Alberta Innovates’ cumulative $13.6-million investment was made through its Ecosystem Development Partnership Program. The first round of the initiative in 2022 saw $9.1 million doled out to 15 projects.
Other recipients in this round include 500 Startups Incubator, which received $400,000 for its angel investing training program specific to Alberta.
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The University of Alberta (UAlberta) secured a total of over $4.25 million across three projects.
The 5G UAlberta Living Lab was allocated $650,000,000, while the Alberta CREATE Centre is receiving $1.75 million. The university’s Digital Health Technology Development and Validation Centre, in partnership with nonprofit Smart Technology Innovations, secured $1.8 million.
Calgary-based healthtech company Brightsquid, which offers a secure communications platform for health-care providers, is receiving $425,000.
Brightsquid recently launched Health Technology Commercialization Hub (HATCH), its startup accelerator, to support the development of healthtech innovations.
As part of Brightsquid’s HATCH program, healthtech startups will be integrated into the Telus Health Exchange, a digital platform meant to enable applications to exchange information with clinics that are using Telus’s electronic medical records equipped with MedDialog, a Telus Health product.
The full breakdown of all recipients in this round and their allocated funding can be found here.
Featured image courtesy Movement51.