The Northumberland CFDC, a business development corporation dedicated to providing financing, strategy, and a comprehensive ecosystem for entrepreneurs, is bringing back to N100 Startup Competition. The winner takes home a cool $100,000.
Northumberland county is located one hour east of Toronto and part of the Northumberland CFDC’s mission is to establish a stronger startup culture in the area. Thus, while it calls the N100 a “global” startup competition, ultimately applicants are expected to establish a presence in Northumberland to qualify for the $100,000 investment.
Last year marked the first N100 competition, with the Unified Computer Intelligence Corporation taking the prize for it ubiquitous computing device, dubbed “the Ubi.” 34 companies applied in total.
“N100 helps accelerate early-stage companies in Ontario by providing risk capital to fund significant milestones in their development—such as prototyping—and ready them for angel round follow-on investment,” said Wendy Curtis of the Northumberland Community Futures Development Corporation. “In addition, N100 is an entrepreneurial attraction and development strategy designed to build a nucleus of next generation companies.”
N100 represents a partnership between Northumberland CFDC and Spark Centre, who provides coaching, mentoring and support for N100 competitors as they advance through three rounds of competition: the Pitch, Business Planning and Negotiation. “We will be working directly with N100 competitors to hone their pitch as well as their business and marketing strategies,” said Spark Centre’s Dennis Croft.
The deadline for N100 competition applications is March 14 at 5pm EDT, while the first round Pitch Contest will be held at the Capitol Theatre in Port Hope on April 30, before a live studio audience. The competition will wrap up in early July.
Through N100 and other initiatives the Northumberland CFDC has supported the launch of 22 startups over two years. They’re labelling it an “emerging hotspot for startups,” which might be a tad liberal in the use of “hotspot”. Nevertheless, for the area’s population it is impressive. In total, those companies filed five new patents and leveraged almost $2.5 million in follow-on investment.
The N100 also announced that it has brought on investor and entrepreneur David L. Shrier to the N100 Power Panel, which helps select the winner while providing guidance to the startups. Shrier currently works with the Office of Philanthropic Partnerships at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).