NBIF And Innovacorp Make $250K Investment In Regional Startups
HALIFAX— The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation (NBIF) and Halifax-based Innovacorp are giving five startups in the Atlantic region a financial boost.
On Thursday the two organizations announced a combined $250,000 investment in five Atlantic Canadian start-ups from Propel’s Incite Accelerator. More than 30 companies participated in the program. It’s the second time the two organizations have collaborated on investments, following a successful partnership in 2019.
“This partnership and this investment are about seeing Atlantic Canada as a total system, rather than as separate regions,” said Thomas Bird, and NBIF investment associate, in a release. “This was a way of unifying the Atlantic region and building closer ties with our partners in Nova Scotia.”
The selected companies will each receive an investment of $50,000 shared equally between NBIF and Innovacorp. The funding is vital to early-stage start-ups for it allows them to conduct market testing. It will help establish their niche in the market and distinguish themselves from potential competitors. Companies were chosen based on their market potential, and investment funding is shared equally between NBIF and Innovacorp.
“Partnering with NBIF allowed us to leverage our shared resources, expertise, and understanding of how we both look at investment opportunities,” said Ben McDade, an investment associate at Innovacorp. “This was something that benefited both of our organizations, as well as the companies we invested in.”
The companies receiving investment are:
• FoodByte, Nova Scotia – An online platform allowing food processors to quickly generate and manage food safety plans
• Simbi, Nova Scotia/British Columbia – Educational technology that gives more than 45,000 students a reason to read, leveraging the power of each learner’s voice to create interactive storybooks that promote global stewardship in the classroom and at home while improving reading skills.
• Safa, Newfoundland – Evidence-based algorithms for better employee retention
• SnapAP, New Brunswick – A fintech solution for streamlining the Purchase To Payment cycle within organizations, resulting in significant time and money savings from adoption of its innovative SnapAP processing approach
• TotalIQ, Newfoundland – An expertise management platform for distributed engineering teams that leverages collective project experience to increase proposal wins and profitability.
“Our partnership with NBIF and Innovacorp plays a very important role in the support Propel provides to start-ups,” said Barry Bisson, CEO at Propel. “Not only do the start-ups benefit from much-needed capital, they gain experience in the process of raising capital that will be valuable when they raise future rounds of investment.”