What makes Canada such an exciting place to be an entrepreneur?
Aside from innovation funding and R&D tax credits, Canada is also home to some of the most innovative, entrepreneurial and—maybe most importantly—hungry founders and dreamers in the world.
Bringing those innovators together and helping them get their products and services off the ground is at the heart of what drives the team at FounderFuel.
Led by General Manager Katy Yam, FounderFuel is a four month accelerator program that partners founders with insightful mentors, intensive networking and expert coaching, culminating in Canada’s biggest Demo Day, taking place this year on July 11th.
Katy—who is also a Partner at Real Ventures—joins the podcast alongside Lisa Séguin, Real Ventures’ Director of Marketing and People and FounderFuel’s Program Manager, to discuss the larger Canadian tech ecosystem, their 2023 startup cohort, and the great partnerships they’ve cemented over the years to position both Montreal and Canada generally as a hotbed for innovation.
Among the many things that makes the 2023 FounderFuel program unique? For the first time since launching in 2011, it’s not backed by one, but three different VC firms—along with Real Ventures, Panache Ventures and Inovia Capital—who have joined forces to back the amazing startups in this year’s cohort.
This spirit of collaboration was what sparked FounderFuel in the first place, offering Canadian entrepreneurs a homegrown avenue for growth—opposed to looking toward Silicon Valley VCs, which had started to become the default for many Canadian founders.
Lisa and Katy break it all down on this episode, including naming some of the banner brands to come out of FounderFuel and what we can look forward to at this year’s Demo Day.
Check out the full ‘Fantastic 7′ roster of the 2023 Founder Fuel startup cohort here on their blog.
Listen to this interview and other conversations with innovative founders on Boast’s YouTube Channel.
At both the federal and provincial level, Canada provides a wealth of innovation funding in the form of tax credits and grants that offer founders non-dilutive capital to fuel their runway.
In our guide, we break down the most popular government-backed funding programs and how you can start tapping into them to grow your business.
