Four startups took home $25,000 at the Velocity Fund Finals, the flagship competition of the University of Waterloo’s Velocity entrepreneurship program.
Ten startups pitched in front of a panel of judges, who evaluated startups based on market potential, market viability, and overall pitch.
“Over the last 10 years, Velocity has ignited the entrepreneurial spirit of thousands of students and founders as they explore entrepreneurship and begin a journey to build globally competitive, high-growth companies,” said Jay Shah, director of Velocity. “Building a startup can be incredibly rewarding and is proportionally difficult but by bringing together a community of entrepreneurs, mentors with first-hand experience, and impact-amplifying resources, our startups have been able to make a significant economic and social impact. This has enabled them to create 2265 jobs across 315 companies, and raise $815 million in funding.”
The four winning startups included:
“Organizations that work with young females and all non-for profits, in general, are just like real businesses; they do have the same problems,” said SheLeads founder Cassandra Myers said. “They have a lot of money flowing through them, but they don’t have a lot of solutions that apply to some of the unique problems that they’re facing. So, our overall mission is to provide new and innovative solutions for the not-for profit space.”
All four startups took home an extra $5K in intellectual property services from local firm, PCK | Perry + Currier. They will also be admitted to the Velocity Garage startup incubator.
Velocity also hosted its early-stage $5K pitch competition. Those winners included:
