The second Women+ Entrepreneur Incubator program cohort, which is presented by Elevate and The Firehood, took place throughout April and culminated in a showcase on stage at Uniting The Prairies last week.
The event saw attendance records broken and four women-led startups receive a collective investment of $135,000 from The Firehood’s angel investors.
Toronto-based DuaWalla received the largest investment from the angel investors present at the event, nabbing $75,000, while Toronto’s Chexy received $25,000, Battleford, Sask.-based Combine Settings received $25,000, and Kitchener’s Asima Health received $10,000.
“Given the truly national nature of this program in which we had founders pitch us from coast to coast, it seemed only appropriate to have the program end with everyone meeting in the middle—in Saskatoon!” The Firehood co-founder Danielle Graham said in a statement.
RELATED: Conexus Venture Capital launches its second $30-million fund to back Saskatchewan tech startups
Founded by Kirstine Stewart, the founding head of Twitter Canada and also a speaker at the Women+ in Tech Mixer on the first day of Uniting the Prairies, DuaWalla claims it is the “first-ever digitally integrated prayer and meditation mat,” and is marketed to “busy Muslim travellers.” According to DuaWalla’s F6S page, the tech-enabled mat is the “Peloton for prayers,” providing users with meditation and prayer reminders, schedules, and guides.
Chexy, founded by CEO Lizaveta Akhvledziani, chief product officer Abtine Monavvari, and CTO Ben Gigone, is part of a collection of FinTech firms offering rewards programs geared towards renters and landlords. The startup calls itself a tenant-facing payments platform, enabling tenants to make their monthly rental payments through their credit cards. Last June, Chexy raised a $1.3 million CAD pre-seed round led by Crossbeam Ventures.
Combine Settings is a peer-to-peer platform that allows farmers to connect with each other on a local or global level to share settings for combines (a type of seed-harvesting machine) specific to crop, combine type, equipment, geography, and weather. Combine Settings claims that by centralizing the platform and verifying its users, farmers have an easier alternative to quickly find proven, third-party settings information without browsing social media or making multiple phone calls. Graham told BetaKit that Combine Settings co-founder Megan Madden is a Métis woman, and that the two angels who invested in her are also Indigenous women.
Asima Health, founded in 2023 by CEO Shalini Gupta is developing a faster multi-cancer blood test, claiming its patent-pending technology delivers sample results in less than 12 hours as opposed to multiple days or weeks. Asima claims its test can simultaneously detect multiple cancers through a single blood draw. Graham told BetaKit that Asima raised the $10,000 from one angel “on the spot,” but there are other interested parties in a due diligence process following the event.
RELATED: Federal government invests $2.5 million in Co.Labs to maintain Uniting the Prairies
Established by Saskatoon-based technology hub Co.Labs, Uniting the Prairies looks to bring together investors, startups, and community members from across Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba. Co.Labs executive director Jonathan Lipoth told BetaKit that this year established some records for the event, with 91 investors and 171 tech founders making up its over 600 attendees, beating out last year’s 78 and 133, respectively. Lipoth claimed it was the largest meeting of tech founders and investors ever held in Saskatchewan.
This year’s Uniting the Prairies kicked off with a couple of announcements aimed at stimulating the Prairie tech ecosystem. Conexus Venture Capital (CVC) managing director Jordan McFarlen announced on-stage that the CVC has launched its second $30-million CAD venture capital fund that will invest in more early-stage Saskatchewan-based technology startups.
Additionally, Dan Vandal, the Minister for Prairies Economic Development Canada, announced that Co.Labs had received just over $2.5 million from the federal government to help continue the Uniting the Prairies event for the next three years.
Feature image courtesy Uniting the Prairies via LinkedIn.
