Six Atlantic Canadian technology startups were selected to each receive a $25,000 investment from Volta Cohort, a micro-fund co-founded by Volta, BDC Capital, Innovacorp and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA). The companies will also receive mentorship from experienced entrepreneurs and resources to help grow their businesses.
“The companies selected to join Volta Cohort are great examples of the type of innovation happening in Atlantic Canada, and Volta looks forward to supporting these founders as they develop their businesses,” said Jesse Rodgers, CEO of Volta and member of the judging panel.
This event marked the third intake to the Volta Cohort program. The program launched last year to address the lack of investment and resources available to early stage Atlantic Canadian technology startups. Participants are selected through an application process that runs twice a year. Volta hosts a pitch event every six months to determine who is accepted into the program.
“Our entire innovation ecosystem benefits when high calibre founders choose to start and operate their innovative businesses in Atlantic Canada,” said Rodgers. “Volta Cohort is providing the resources early stage companies need to develop products that reach global markets.”
Volta Cohort pitch events typically select up to five companies, but the quality of finalists prompted the judges to choose one more than past events.
The companies chosen to join the next Volta Cohort are:
- Aurea Technologies (Halifax, NS) – Aurea Technologies is helping solve the climate change crisis by creating simple, human-centric, revolutionary wind turbines for consumer and commercial markets.
- Byos Cybersecurity (Halifax, NS) – Byos is developing a product to monitor and protect companies’ critical resources from data leaks, security breaches, fraud and infections.
- Neothermal Energy Storage Inc. (Bridgewater, NS) – Neothermal Energy Storage is tackling high home energy costs with a smart-home compatible electric thermal storage heater for residential supplemental space and water heating.
- Milk Moovement (St John’s, NL) – Milk Moovement is a dairy industry ERP platform that provides significant data improvement for all stakeholders in the dairy industry. Milk Moovement is currently being used across Newfoundland and Labrador and is preparing for expansion across all Atlantic provinces.
- iLokol Technologies (Halifax, NS) – iLokol is developing a multi-language platform that helps international students and newcomers find the right place to shop, dine and play. Users can check for nearby businesses, find products or services and place orders from their mobile devices.
- Tranquility Online (Halifax, NS) – Tranquility Online offers an online SaaS solution that uses Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). Tranquility Online’s interactive CBT software was built by experts and can also be accompanied by coaching from real people, trained by their internally developed training protocol.