Five Canadian tech startups are participating in Y Combinator’s Summer 2022 Demo Day: ALT TEX, Caddie, KemNet, Lancey, and Provision.
As part of the Silicon Valley-based accelerator’s 35th Demo Day to date, 227 companies from around the world are set to pitch their businesses to a select group of investors and members of the press today and tomorrow, Thursday, September 8.
This time around, only five of these 227 participants are Canadian. This total represents a steep drop compared to Y Combinator’s previous two cohorts, as 16 Canadian startups took part in Winter 2022 and Summer 2021 Demo Days—an all-time high. Five marks the fewest Canadian startups at a Demo Day since Winter 2019.
This event comes shortly after Y Combinator boosted the size of its standard deal and cut the number of startups in its Summer 2022 batch down 40 percent compared to its previous cohort, in light of the market downturn and current fundraising environment. The latter move has likely had an impact on the number of Canadian companies taking part in this cohort and event.
Here are the five Canadian startups presenting during Y Combinator’s Summer 2022 Demo Day:
ALT TEX
Toronto-based sustainable fashion and textile manufacturing startup ALT TEX makes biodegradable and carbon-neutral textiles engineered from food waste. With its patent-pending fermentation technology, ALT TEX aims to reduce the fashion industry’s dependence on fossil fuels.
Founded in 2020 by CEO Myra Arshad and CTO Avneet Ghotra, ALT TEX recently raised $1.5 million CAD in pre-seed funding to commercialize its sustainable polyester alternative.
Caddie
Caddie offers “contact sales” flow for B2B websites. The Toronto company’s platform helps clients automate inbound sales lead qualification, route, and schedule sales meetings.
Launched last year by Marshall Johnston and Alan Nowogrodski, Caddie claims it can help customers get inbound sales qualification “down to seconds” while also dramatically reducing inbound sales development representative effort.
KemNet
Edmonton-based healthtech startup KemNet is building a platform to supply pharmacies with premium reformulated medications of popular drugs for specific groups of patients.
Founded this year by CEO Morẹ́nikẹ́ Ọláòṣebìkan, a licensed clinical pharmacist, KemNet claims it can provide pharmacies with products that are more useful for specific groups of patients than traditional drugs, including custom medications for erectile dysfunction, hair growth, pain, weight loss, and women’s health, among other health issues.
Lancey
Lancey is a Toronto software company that aims to help marketing and sales teams generate more leads and higher conversion with interactive product demos.
Launched earlier this year by CEO Adi Patel and CTO Abhi Patel, the startup has already amassed a list of clients that includes marketing and sales teams at fast-growing Canadian tech startups like Ada and Introhive.
Provision
Toronto-based startup Provision is building collaborative document management software for the construction industry.
Founded in 2022 by Brendan Ardagh and Luigi La Corte, Provision claims its tech can organize and extract information from thousands of pages of documents and revisions, in order to help construction professionals save “hundreds of hours per bid and make more money.”
Feature image courtesy Y Combinator.
