Invest Ottawa’s Path Fund, a new grant competition offering financial support to tech startups on their way to success, saw great success for 18 local startups.
This initiative, evaluated with the help of ecosystem partner LSpark SaaS Accelerator, underscores Invest Ottawa’s commitment to empowering the local tech ecosystem and fostering the next generation of innovators.
With $170,000 in nondilutive grant funding up for grabs, the Path Fund helps startups in Invest Ottawa’s Venture Path portfolio cover costs as they hit key milestones. The competition drew over 50 applications from ambitious startups and awarded 18 final recipients—with each receiving up to $10,000 to fuel their growth in sales and customer discovery, marketing, and product development.
Keep reading to discover how some of these recipients put the funds to work on their exciting paths.
Evoke Health
Evoke Health’s Engage+, is a clinical portal that provides residents and their families with access to real-time comprehensive health and facility-based information. The portal integrates with any existing Electronic Charting System to automate and streamline inbound and outbound communication between staff and families in long-term care and assisted living homes. Evoke Health looked to use the Path Fund to ramp up its marketing efforts such as attending/speaking at conferences, website edits, and development of marketing assets including blog posts and videos to help increase awareness of its technology and grow its sales pipeline.
With the funding, Evoke Health hired a sales consultant to assist with lead generation and customer pipelines. Additionally, the team focused on marketing efforts such as customer video testimonials, attending a conference, and a website re-design is currently underway. As a result, Evoke Health signed its first Canadian customer and has added more than 95 leads to its pipeline.
Plantaform
Plantaform’s Rejuvenate is an indoor gardening pod aimed to address food security challenges. Plantaform looked to use the Path Fund to refine its marketing strategy to ensure its target audience was being captured. By improving its retargeting quality and its understanding of its target audience, Plantaform would be better positioned to achieve sales success.
The Path Fund project allowed Plantaform to create new advertisement designs and launch them across Facebook and Instagram. Additionally, Plantaform was able to conduct an SEO audit and enhance its website messaging through A/B testing. Ad campaigns drove 61 total orders and assisted with website traffic which gave Plantafrom a boost in sales during the project timeline.
Romaeris
Romaeris is prototyping large-scale UAVs with the goal to address the gap in the market between smaller drones and larger manned aircraft. Romaeris looked to the Path Fund to achieve a new product-market fit by building a scaled-down version of its large, fixed-wing UAV to expedite commercial activities while awaiting new regulations to come into effect.
To complete this project, Romaeris built a project plan including a design review of the aircraft, completion of engineering drawings, build and assembly of the prototype, and testing for the power and control systems. The project went well with a record for the fastest design-build of a new unmanned aircraft.
These are just a few examples of the incredible successes we’ve seen from the Path Fund. Here are the remaining 15 companies from the total list of 18 companies that the Path Fund helped fuel.
- ALFA Aero Solutions Inc.: Fast tracked the development of select features from its product backlog that help the goal of more automation and make its product more marketable.
- Bannister: Implemented product improvements to their mobile app to improve overall user experience and engagement.
- Brainware AI: Hired additional team members in computer sciences to build a working prototype and position them to raise capital.
- Celestra Health Systems: Contracted consultants to assist in the development and submission of high-quality FDA applications.
- Constant Health: Secured its Soc2Type1 certification and is now preparing for the Soc2Type1 audit.
Knokd: Tested digital marketing channels to attract new agent users to its website with the goal of converting them to a free trial. - LearnExperts: Developed its LEAi Platform to reflect feedback from a design review with OCAD.
- Leynek Medical: Verified its product with end users prior to filing patents and signing contracts to manufacture the product at a larger scale.
- PocketMD: Instated a comprehensive framework of security, availability, confidentiality, and processing integrity controls within the application.
- Proxi.id: Added to its marketing plan to generate demand and awareness for Proxi.id Academic Verification Service.
- SMATS: Accelerated its efforts in driving client acquisition for its port solution.
- Stripe Studios: Designed and prepared new items for the NAB trade show.
- Whimble Care: Developed a user-tested and accessible prototype of a v1.0 native app, marking its progression from proof of concept to scalable technology, vital for expansion in Ottawa and beyond.
- Wicket: Added a new feature on its platform to allow customers to trigger an action based on data from multiple systems.
- Zendelity: Generated awareness and interest necessary to achieve its 2023 sales objectives and closing new customer accounts.
“Invest Ottawa is thrilled to have the support of FedDev Ontario on this important initiative. We’ve noticed a significant gap in early-stage funding within our ecosystem. Investors want to see traction and milestone achievement before they’re willing to write a cheque, but our founders often struggle to source the cash to accomplish these early wins,” explains Megan Maltby, Senior Manager, Accelerator Programs & Investor Relations at Invest Ottawa.
“The Path Fund has helped bridge this gap, and we look forward to hearing what continued outcomes our client companies achieve as they move along their individual venture paths.”
About IO Venture Path
The IO Venture Path is a portfolio of Invest Ottawa’s venture programs designed to help Ottawa’s startups and scaleups shorten their path to success. Each program is designed to serve tech companies’ unique needs at different growth stages. Are you a tech company looking to leverage Invest Ottawa’s programs? Learn more about the Venture Path programs.