Breakthru is returning to New Brunswick.

As it awarded a $50,000 investment at the Breakthru Accelerating Cleantech pitching event on Tuesday, the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation unveiled its plans to resurrect the Breakthru brand, whose name was once given to its flagship competition.

The pitching competition winner, which received a $50,000 investment from NBIF, was AgroGene Solutions, which was founded by four researchers at Universite de Moncton and provides monitoring services for beekeepers. Last year, AgroGene CEO Pascale Michaud was recognized as an innovator to watch at the InnovateNB event.  

AgroGene’s other co-founders are Nicolas Pichaud, Luc Boudreau, and Gilles Robichaud.

In the pitching event on Tuesday, it was competing against: OceanAM, whose cofounders are Dr. Mohsen Mohammadi, Foroozan Forooghi. Mohsen Keshavarzan; Binovate, Richard Naing; and  Decarb Technologies David Leonardo Sanchez.

Following the event, NBIF Chief Executive Jeff White said the organization aims to provide more support for early-stage startups in the province by resurrecting the Breakthru brand.

Before the pandemic, Breakthru was the foundation’s highest-profile event, and a true passion project of then-CEO Calvin Milbury. It used to be held every second year and award hundreds of thousands of dollars to the top three startups, which had all gone through months of preparation and mentorship. Since 2019, there were several smaller-scale events with the Breakthru name and now NBIF wants to bring the events back in some shape or form. Details are not known yet.