How U of T is Powering Startup Growth in Canada

It was one of those classic entrepreneurial moments, when an ordinary daily irritant becomes the spark for a startup. For Abdel Ali, inspiration struck after he tried – and failed – to persuade his condo building manager to install an electric vehicle (EV) charging port near his parking spot. The building’s electrical system couldn’t support new infrastructure, and his space wasn’t against a wall, ruling out a standard fixed unit. Another solution would have been prohibitively expensive and impractical. “I realized it was basically impossible,” he says.

Most people would have given up at that point, but Ali, founder and CEO of Kiwi Charge, didn’t let it go. He reckoned there were thousands of potential EV buyers living in older apartment buildings facing similar barriers. “If you don’t have access to charging infrastructure, you’re not going to get an EV,” he says. “It’s a huge problem.”

Ali, who at the time was helping others build startups, eventually started a company of his own. He recruited four partners and set to work on a solution. Their latest prototype – a robotic charger – was on display at this year’s Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto.

To raise capital, Ali knew he’d have to find backers and soon connected with U of T’s Black Founders Network. While he was fundraising furiously, the network brought something even more important. “The main thing was the advisers, the access, the exposure,” he says. “The network was an incredible gateway for us.”

The Black Founders Network is one of a dozen incubator and accelerator hubs across U of T’s three campuses. While that roster has grown by just two in recent years, the expansion of activity has been dramatic. In 2019 about 380 startups were connected to U of T’s entrepreneurship ecosystem. Today there are more than 1,300. Over 300 teams joined the community in the last year alone.

“The engagement is across the board and not unique to a specific industry,” says Jon French, director of U of T Entrepreneurship, describing ventures spanning artificial intelligence, biotech, clean energy and cybersecurity.

The surge reflects broader changes. The pandemic spurred experimentation and “side hustles” French notes, but he also sees a cultural shift. U of T scholars who once might have licensed discoveries to established firms are increasingly choosing to launch companies themselves. “There’s more interest in spinning discoveries out into a company,” he says.

This new approach is evident in the career of Prof. Molly Shoichet, a chemical engineer who held a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Tissue Engineering. In 2016, she co-founded AmacaThera, a biotech company commercializing a drug delivery hydrogel that was developed in her lab.

Shoichet and co-founder Mike Cooke participated in two U of T accelerators – the Creative Destruction Lab at the Rotman School of Management, and UTEST, which provides mentoring, space and, for selected companies, a $150,000 investment.

For Shoichet, who has founded three previous companies, the programs helped narrow the team’s focus. “AmacaThera has a platform technology,” she says. “That’s a blessing in that it can be used for so many different applications. The curse is that it can be used for so many applications.”

Feedback from the Creative Destruction Lab’s network of founders and UTEST’s structured 12-month program, helped AmacaThera identify where it excelled, where there was a clear clinical need and where there was the strongest business case. “Bringing those three together was hugely important,” she says.

For Mattia Montagna, founder of Quantum Bridge Technologies, the lessons were more tactical. The encryption-security startup also emerged from the Creative Destruction Lab and UTEST, where Montagna learned how to prepare a pitch deck for prospective investors, how to read a term sheet, and how senior company officials should spend their time.

Montagna has graduate degrees in physics and economics from universities in Europe and worked at the European Central Bank. He came to Canada in 2017 to pursue postdoctoral work at U of T, where he partnered with Hoi-Kwong Lo, a professor of physics and electrical and computer engineering. Together, they developed intellectual property in cryptography and created a company.

At the Creative Destruction Lab, Montagna learned how to spend his time effectively and how to set quarterly goals – both of which proved invaluable, he says. “When you devote every waking hour to your company, it can feel like you have infinite time to experiment. The Creative Destruction Lab forces you to ask: what are the two or three most important things you can do to move the needle over the next three months?”

French argues that U of T’s growing entrepreneurship network aligns with a national conversation about Canada’s economic future: how to diversify beyond traditional sectors, strengthen productivity and innovation and reduce dependence on the U.S. For years, many promising Canadian innovators relocated abroad, drawn by investment and larger markets. “Our most promising and successful companies aren’t always sticky to Canada,” he says.

But that calculus may be changing. A recent episode in which the U.S. accelerator Y Combinator temporarily stopped accepting Canadian applications ignited a conversation about the risk of relying on foreign accelerators and capital and the idea that Canadian ventures can succeed without leaving home.

At the same time, a stricter U.S. immigration policy has made Canada more attractive to international scholars and entrepreneurs. French says he’s spending a lot of time these days talking to global recruiters about the talent pool here and the resources feeding it, including U of T’s increasingly sought-after hubs for entrepreneurs. “There are more students and their parents looking at Canada in a way that they weren’t previously, as an inclusive launchpad for innovation and venture creation,” he says.

The result, he argues, is cumulative. Each new venture that launches, raises capital and hires employees strengthens the ecosystem for the next one. The payoff is not just measured in dollars invested or jobs created, but in a growing confidence that world-class companies can be built – and remain – in Canada.