As a former director of startup accelerator Next AI, George Korkejian has heard his fair share of pitches. So when his longtime friend Nicholas Monette came back from a hunting trip last summer with a startup idea, he didn’t expect to like it.
Monette, who has a background in pharmaceutical economics and marketing, said he had identified an untapped market: breath control for recreational hunters and wildlife observers who don’t want their scent tracked. Most odour-masking products were sprays, deodorants, or hermetically sealed bags, Monette said, but few tackled a glaring problem: the hundreds of particles humans release into the air with each breath. Korkejian was convinced.
“We closed the round at the worst time [in] 20 years.”
Nicholas Monette
A year later, Montréal-based consumer hardware startup Rozvelt has launched pre-sales of its breath-control hunting headgear and raised $450,000 from angel investors. This comes despite a challenging early-stage fundraising environment clouded by tariff uncertainty.
The patent-pending headgear, called VEKTR, contains a mask designed to filter out odour particles exhaled by the wearer, but not those inhaled. It connects magnetically to an adjustable band that wraps around the head, with a removal clasp near each ear. Monette said the product is designed for recreational hunters, but also caters to wildlife photographers and observers.
Monette told BetaKit that there’s a gap in the outdoor gear market for durable, premium-branded hardware designed to limit odours. He claims that a significant portion of a human’s trackable scent comes from breath particles, which are far easier to detect for bears, deer, and other animals with a highly developed sense of smell.
Rozvelt raised money from mostly Québec-based angel investors, including Alexandre Meterissian, managing director at executive advisory firm Teneo, and Hugues Vaillancourt, owner of Antler Firearms.
In an interview with BetaKit, Monette said it was a struggle to raise pre-revenue capital after the United States (US) first levied tariffs on Canadian goods, sparking a monthslong trade war that has hurt Canadian startups in the hardware space.
“We closed the round at the worst time [in] 20 years,” Monette said. He believes Rozvelt could have raised three to four times its final amount had it not been for tariffs.
Monette said some potential investors were interested, but ultimately passed on the round, citing the trade war’s impact on hardware products and a broader economic downturn. Rozvelt’s experience is not unique among Canadian hardware companies: last month, consumer hardware startup Smart Nora filed for bankruptcy, in part due to unsuccessful fundraising efforts. Smart Nora’s CEO told BetaKit that some investors said they would not consider investing in the connected hardware space until the following year.
Despite the macroeconomic challenges, Monette believes Rozvelt will break into the niche hunting-gear market as an upscale brand. The startup has enlisted outdoors gear experts and wildlife enthusiasts for its advisory board, which provided feedback in the early days of product development. The board includes Jacques Caron, the former CEO of Québec parks and wildlife reserve agency Sépaq, as well as Jean Tremblay, a former vice president at outdoor gear brand SAIL.
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“As a hunter myself, I quickly realized that the project addressed an unmet need and was developing a unique innovation,” Caron said in a statement.
The Canadian market for hunting equipment and accessories is expected to grow from just over $1 billion USD today to $1.8 billion USD in 2030, according to market analysis from Grand View Research. While hunting masks that claim to limit breath odours are generally available from outdoor gear retailers, Monette says his product is better-performing than competitors and is designed to last 10 years.
As it exits stealth, Rozvelt plans to sell its headgear for $599 in pre-sales, with replaceable filters available for an additional cost. The most recent hike in US tariffs on Canadian goods, however, means that American customers may have to pay 35 percent more.
Monette said he hopes to manufacture the product in Canada, but it has proven to be exceedingly difficult so far. Canadian hardtech founders, such as founder and former SRTX CEO Katherine Homuth, have previously told BetaKit that the cost of labour and machinery in North America is a significant barrier to scaling up.
“If we can do it here, we will do it here,” Monette said.
Feature image courtesy Rozvelt.