Canum Nanomaterials Wins Top Awards Worth $375,000 At NBIF Breakthru Event
FREDERICTON – Canum Nanomaterials took home cash awards totalling more $375,000 at the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation’s Breakthru competition Thursday night at the Fredericton Convention Centre.
The Fredericton-based company – led by President and CEO Kyle Woods, COO Alex Clarkin, CTO Francois Michaud and Director of Research Dr. Felipe Chibante – won the grand prize of $300,000 and the CBC Viewers Choice award worth $75,000.
“Going through this process competing against four other great teams in the finals really pushed us and made us better. It’s had a really positive impact on our business,” said Woods after accepting the award along with his co-founders in front of hundreds of people gathered at the Convention Centre.
“I also want to thank the UNB’s Centre for Technology Management and Entrepreneurship (TME). The faculty and fellow classmates in that program have been a tremendous support. They’ve made it a smooth process developing the business plan. Also, the other co-founders here with me have been great and made working with this company a lot of fun and I know we’ll have a smooth path going forward.”
Canum Nanomaterials makes a product that may be hard to grasp for the average person but has broad applications. It produces high-quality fullerenes for use by manufacturers and researchers. Fullerenes are carbon allotropes that can be used in a wide variety of applications, including as antioxidants, antiviral solutions, solar cell components, hydrophobic drug deliverers and photosensitizers.
Spun out of Dr. Chibante’s innovative research at the University of New Brunswick, Canum’s unique production processes allow for the affordable and environmentally friendly manufacture of these complex and versatile molecules.
“[Fullerenes] are being used in flexible organic solar cells, health supplements and other new and emerging technologies, but the high price of fullerenes has limited the growth of these markets,” said Woods in his pitch at the event Thursday night.
“Our company has developed a solution to this problem. We’re able to take carbon black, the same inexpensive material that’s used to make tires, and turn it into valuable fullerenes. The next step for us is to raise the financing required in order to build a [facility] and make fullerenes affordable and accessible to everyone.”
The first-place winner received a $200,000 investment from the NBIF; the second-place finisher received $100,000; and the CBC Viewers Choice award was $50,000. Opportunities NB (ONB) contributed 50 cents for each dollar invested by the NBIF ($100,000 for the first-place winner, $50,000 for second, and $25,000 for the Viewers Choice award).
The CBC Viewers’ Choice voting process began last week. Each finalist had a short segment on the 6 pm news with Harry Forestell (one per evening). Once the final interview aired March 15, each segment was uploaded to the CBC New Brunswick Facebook page, where the public engaged with the video. Each engagement (like, share, comment, et cetera) counts as a vote. The voting ended March 20, the day before the event at the Convention Centre.
RIDDL wins second prize
The second prize winner was RIDDL, which developed a cloud-based software platform that harnesses the power of advanced machine learning to provide investment managers and donors with actionable data about how they can use their investments to effect change in fields like climate change mitigation and poverty reduction.
Founded by Janelle Sobey, Vanessa Paesani and Jess Peters, RIDDL’s pragmatic solution to this real-world problem is an important contribution to the corporate social responsibility movement.
“Imagine you each had $500,000 to invest in an organization to improve literacy rates in New Brunswick,” said Sobey in her pitch Thursday night. “Which organization would you pick and how would you know that you’ve been successful? The truth is, you wouldn’t. Millions are being invested in social problems like illiteracy and yet illiteracy in New Brunswick continues to be a problem with 53 per cent of [people] still functionally illiterate.
“This is one example of a social problem that ‘impact investors’ are interested in solving. RIDDL provides proprietary data to impact investors to help guide and make better ‘impact investment’ decisions.”
The NBIF received 34 business plan submissions this year. All of the applicants to the program are in the early stages of development and the NBIF hopes the cash investments will enable the winners to take their businesses to the next level.
The organization hosted two “entrepreneurship boot camps” that offered teams advice, mentoring and support from successful founders and operators of local and national businesses. In February, they selected a shortlist of 10 and then picked five finalists earlier this month. In addition to RIDDL and Canum Nanomaterials, the following companies made the final five:
- Better Than Reality has developed a virtual reality training platform for nuclear facilities and utility operators. The team members are Daniel Kane, Esther Sangodoyin, and Harpreet Kohli.
- Punch Review has developed a web application that helps farmers capture food safety compliance and maintenance records more efficiently. Entrepreneur Ross Culberson is behind this venture.
- Sensory Friendly Solutions has created a mobile app that allows people with sensory sensitivities to find, share and rate sensory friendly spaces. Christel Seeberger is the entrepreneur behind this company.
“From the initial batch of 34 startups that began the competition through our semi-finalists and finalists, we were consistently impressed with the quality of the ideas coming from this province’s entrepreneurs,” said Jeff White, NBIF’s CEO.
“New Brunswick always punches above its weight. From virtual reality to bioscience to neural networks, New Brunswick researchers and startups are at the forefront of some of the world’s most promising industries. We’re thrilled to offer them a platform and support network through the Breakthru competition.”
Prizes were also awarded in the form of professional services from contributing sponsors like Deloitte, Cox & Palmer, Symplicity Designs, Momentum, Bonfire Communications and Amy Parrill.
Breakthru is a biennial, province-wide startup competition designed to encourage the creation and development of entrepreneurial, innovative business ventures in New Brunswick. Offered by the NBIF, Breakthru gives participants a unique opportunity to access start-up capital, mentoring, and support from industry leaders and other successful entrepreneurs.