Invest Nova Scotia has announced 11 companies joining the first 2023 cohort of its Accelerate startup program.
Accelerate offers participating companies 5 months of business and technical training and $40,000 of funding.
Accelerate, which Innovacorp retooled in the summer of 2021, replaced both the old, longer program of the same name and the shorter Sprint accelerator. It is completely virtual and aimed at companies that have already established market opportunities for products based on science or engineering-related intellectual property, as well as having completed or nearly completed a proof of concept or prototype.
Software companies have made a dominant showing this year, with five of the 11 startups being information technology businesses.
Here’s a look at the latest cohort:
AGTECH
Sean Myles
Wolfville, NS
FoodImprover is developing a platform technology to genetically modify fruit, including apples.
Brad Saville
Sydney and Toronto
GreenSage is working on a natural antibiotic “alternative” derived from coconut residues.
Three Leaf Bioscience
Dave Kilgour
Halifax
Three Leaf is developing next-generation biostimulants — technology similar to fertilizer, but which operate by different processes — to increase crop yield and pathogen resistance.
CLEANTECH
Sarah Graham, Roya Aghighi
Sydney
Lite-1 is developing environmentally friendly dyes derived from microorganisms.
HEALTHTECH
InkWell Health
John Matthews
Halifax
InkWell is developing a remote patient monitoring system for physiotherapists.
OCEANTECH
SP*RK Electric Boats
Michael Huskilson
Dartmouth
SP*RK is working on electric boats made from sustainable materials, such as recyclable aluminum hulls.
SOTWARE
Mohamed Soliman
Halifax
Couryah is a food delivery service that lets users order from both restaurants and grocery stores, and aims to compete with incumbent players by undercutting them on price.
Jane Crowell, Faran Siddiqui, Ryan Grant
Halifax
East Bay is developing “white-label trading and exchange systems for low-latency/high-frequency environments.” High-frequency trading refers to algorithmic securities trading involving high volumes transacted at an extremely rapid pace.
Alan Uren
Halifax
Endfirst's OVERGantt is project management software that minimizes errors by finding and verifying hidden dependencies before work begins.
Zac Davies, Donald Jessome
Halifax
Oltre makes software for long-term, personalized tax and estate planning.
Masoud Aali
Halifax
Scient uses a hardware and software suite to scan and analyze the contents of core samples, reducing costs compared to manual analysis.
