Two N.B. Companies Named to Canadian Innovation Exchange Top 20
Two Atlantic Canadian companies – Fredericton-based SomaDetect and Jaza Energy, which based in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick – have been named to the prestigious CIX Top 20 by the Canadian Innovation Exchange.
Jaza is a solar energy startup that operates in Sub-Saharan Africa. By building solar charging stations in off-grid communities, Jaza powers households by selling their customers batteries, which are used to power lights and mobile phones. The company is on track to power 30 communities by the end of the year.
“Jaza is working to solve a huge problem and it’s great that the Canadian innovation and startup community is behind us,” said CEO Jeff Schnurr. “There are 1.2 billion people living without access to electricity around the globe and we believe that we can solve that problem with clean and affordable solar energy.”
The company was founded by Schnurr and Sebastian Manchester and has powered more than 500 households using affordable solar energy. The company aims to serve the 600 million people living in Sub-Saharan Africa without access to electricity.
Founded by CEO Bethany Deshpande, SomaDetect is on a heck of a roll lately. Its inclusion in the CIX Top 20 comes weeks after it won $50,000 from the Fierce Founder Bootcamp at Communitech in Kitchener, Ont. Earlier this year, the company won the $180,000 second-place prize in the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation’s Breakthru competition.
SomaDetect helps dairy farmers check the health of their herd quickly, accurately and precisely while testing the quality of their milk.
Read more about this story in Entrevestor.