Northumberland Community Futures Development Corporation (CDFC) has pledged $952,500 in non-dilutive, performance-based seed funding to a total of 42 startups across Northumberland and rural Eastern Ontario.
The N1M program matches private investment of up to $30,000, and provides entrepreneurial skills training for founders.
The companies were selected for N1M-2, the second part of the N1M program, in which FedDev announced a $2.2 million contribution to Northumberland’s CFDC’s program to support tech startups in Eastern Ontario. In 2015, FedDev also committed $3.2 million the Western Ontario Community Futures Development Corporation Association in order to support Southwestern Ontario startups.
The N1M program funding matches private investments made in the startups, up to $30,000, and is contingent on performance. The program also provides entrepreneurial skills training for founders, including a four-part group training session on financial management at Venture13, Northumberland CFDC’s headquarters.
“With our second round of N1M, Northumberland CFDC is now powering some 75 technology startups across Southern Ontario,” said Wendy Curtis, executive director at Northumberland CFDC. “We are inspired to see such a diverse group emerge in response to our call to action to accelerate women-led, greentech, and rural Eastern Ontario-based ventures with renewed funding and support from FedDev Ontario.”
About 24 percent of companies receiving seed funding are Northumberland-based, including Foundation Cloud Solutions, Audience GPS, and Frontier Labs.
A total of 22 percent of companies are based in rural Eastern Ontario, and this includes Riverwood Acoustics, blockchain startup Grain Discovery in Prince Edward County, and FanSaves in Cornwall.
Twelve percent of companies are based in Peterborough and the Kawarthas, including Netmechanics, Canuck Play, and Biosphere GPS.
Top N100, startups Convictional Commerce, Able Innovatoins, and EmulGreen Labs also received a boost from N1M as well, in recognition of their performance in Northumberland’s 2018 open invitational tech startup competition. Last month, it was announced that Argentum Electronics won Northumberland N100 tech competition, securing a $250,000 investment.
Of the startups, 24 percent are women-led ventures, including Meta Innovation Technologies, Elemental Systems, and ConnexHealth Canada.
Featured image via Pixabay.