When a Hamilton-based startup needed connections to the mining industry, David Carter reached out to a contact in Sudbury. When a local hardware company required specialized chip infrastructure, he referred the company to VentureLAB in Markham. And when a medtech needed access to an MRI machine to test its ideas, he helped broker a partnership with a major hospital and found federal funding to back it.
None of those calls were about protecting provincial turf. For Carter, CEO of Innovation Factory, it’s not a strategy so much as a philosophy.
David Carter,
“It’s not Hamilton against the world. It’s Ontario and Canada vying to have a place on the world stage.”
Innovation Factory
“It’s not Hamilton against the world,” he said. “It’s Ontario and Canada vying to have a place on the world stage.”
Innovation Factory is one of more than a dozen Regional Innovation Centres across Ontario, a province-wide accelerator network designed to ensure promising companies aren’t limited by geography. Serving Brant, Halton, Hamilton and Norfolk, the non-profit has worked with more than 3,600 businesses since 2010, helping attract a reported $220 million in investment, generate more than $468 million in revenues, and create over 3,000 jobs.
Strong regional ecosystems, Carter argues, don’t just support individual startups or local founders. They’re how the province’s collective capacity gets put to work. No single region has everything a founder needs, but together they do. The advantage lies in linking those pieces before a promising company stalls.
Why regional ecosystems matter
Hamilton was just a steel town when Innovation Factory launched. Today, it’s one of Ontario’s fastest-growing life sciences clusters, with clinical networks and academic labs sitting alongside legacy manufacturing.
And as the opportunities have grown, so has the complexity of navigating them.
Knowing which institution will run a pilot, which lab will validate a prototype, or which distributor will carry a product isn’t always obvious. That’s especially true for a founder who hasn’t yet got the track record to get their calls returned.
“The worst is them making mistakes they don’t even know are mistakes because they didn’t know to ask the question,” said Carter.
companies aren’t limited by geography.
That’s why the Innovation Factory logs every introduction, referral and connection it makes, tens of thousands in total. Carter describes it as a reputational exchange: when he puts a founder in front of a VP at a major firm or senior researcher, that introduction carries weight because of what Innovation Factory has built over the years.
The vetting cuts both ways. Carter only sends founders he believes are ready. And the network flows in both directions. Hamilton’s hospital and research infrastructure becomes a resource for startups across the province, and relationships with peer hubs mean founders never hit a dead end just because the right expertise isn’t local.
“We can be something to everybody, even if it’s just a connection to somewhere else that can help,” he said.
The right connections
Mariner Endosurgery is a company Carter returns to most often when describing how the regional support can work. A surgeon approached the Innovation Factory with a strong idea to improve laparoscopic surgery, but no business partner. The organization paired him with an MBA graduate and connected them both to mentors and advisors across its life sciences network.
Years later, when the global pandemic halted most elective procedures, Mariner pivoted into healthcare supply chain logistics. As a result, the company went from modest revenue projections to generating tens of millions of dollars, according to Carter.
Innovation Factory didn’t orchestrate the shift. But the groundwork laid over the years proved critical. “The relationships were already there,” he said.
Not every point of contact is that dramatic. Some of the most valuable work happens earlier, before a founder signs the wrong lease or misses a regulatory requirement they didn’t know existed.
“We can’t [always] take credit for their success, but we can tell you that when they’ve stumbled, it wasn’t fatal.”
The human edge
The value of that work has only grown as AI tools change how founders build companies. Founders can now research markets, draft documents, and identify funding programs in minutes. Innovation Factory is rethinking its approach alongside them, shifting how it delivers training and programming.
But Carter distinguishes between AI as an information tool and AI as a stand-in for human relationships. When every founder can instantly identify and apply to every available program, for instance, the funds get overwhelmed, and the personal connections that once helped the most promising companies get noticed get lost in the noise.
“Technically, you’ll get the information,” he said. “But reputation has been taken out of it completely.”
For Carter, this is where regional hubs earn their place, showing up before a startup has revenue, customers, or a name anyone recognizes. “We can’t afford to let anybody slip through the cracks.”
PRESENTED BY
Your path to success is unique. Innovation Factory can support you every step of the way, providing the skills, connections, and confidence to grow a viable business. Learn more.
All images courtesy Innovation Factory.