Lab2Market’s third oceans cohort commenced Monday, boasting the program’s highest ever level of gender diversity.

Forty percent of the students attending the seven-week accelerator for research commercialization identify as female, compared to 23 percent last year and 11 percent the year before. Hosted by Dalhousie, Toronto Metropolitan University, Memorial University and University of Manitoba, Lab2Market provides training and support to teams looking to start businesses based on research from Canadian universities. The oceans stream of Lab2Market is hosted by Memorial University of Newfoundland.

“Canada is uniquely positioned to be a global leader in developing innovative, sustainable ocean technologies that can help us better understand and protect our ocean resources,” said Ocean Startup Project Executive Director Don Grant in a statement. “The potential for these researchers to create new products and services is huge, and the benefits to our economy and our environment are significant.”

Since the oceans stream of Lab2Market launched in 2020, a total of 38 teams have participated, 24 of which have continued to pursue entrepreneurship through commercialization or accelerator/incubator programming. Participants have interviewed 1,517 customers as they worked on finding product-market fit, and have raised more than $742,000 in funds.

Here are the members of the latest cohort:

Smart-ER

Memorial University

Smart-ER makes technology for responding to marine oil spills.

Precision Pathway

Memorial University

Precision Pathway is developing a navigation-planning tool for vessels in ice-covered waters.

APEL UOIT

Ontario Tech University

APEL UOIT is working on a small-scale mobile waste-to-energy generator for marine ships.

PhyCo

Simon Fraser University

PhyCo plans to sell biodegradable and non-toxic plastic made from Seaweed.

Sea Cucumber Nutraceuticals

Memorial University

Sea Cucumber is converting an under-utilized biproduct from sea cucumbers into a nutritional supplement.

Avalon Navigation

Memorial University

Avalon plans to sell a predictive control system for autonomous ships.

SwarmRobot

University of Victoria

SwarmRobot is developing a system to control unmanned boats and aircraft en masse.

IceCube

Memorial University

IceCube is developing a data acquisition system for autonomous shipping in the arctic.

I-Land

Memorial University

I-Land is an instrument landing system for vertical take-off and landing aircraft (of which the famous Harrier Jump Jet is one historical example).

BioCure Bandage

Concordia University

Entrevestor was unable to obtain information about BioCure.

Recycling Technologies

University of Alberta

Recycling Technologies is designing boats made from recycled plastic.

Blind Interference Suppression

Memorial University

Blind Interference is developing a system to reduce the extent to which wind turbines interfere with radar data.

The Fusers

Memorial University

The Fusers are working on technology to consolidate data from several types of marine weather sensors.

Bio-Feed

Memorial University

Bio-Feed is an oil-based fish food for use in aquaculture that aims to improve fish’s stress resistance.

Marisk

Dalhousie University

Entrevestor was unable to obtain information about Marisk.

Aquacare

Memorial University

Aquacare is developing a drinking water filtration system for arsenic removal.

Ocean Yeast

Memorial University

Ocean Yeast is researching new ways to use yeast in fish food for aquaculture, among other applications.

ReEng

Memorial University

ReEng is developing generators to harvest renewable energy in marine environments.

Autonomous Underwater Manipulator (AUM)

Memorial University

AUM is working on an algorithm for estimating the position of underwater manipulator equipment — essentially robotic arms — when comprehensive measurements about the machinery’s position are unavailable.

SES-FCS

Ontario Tech University

SES-FCS is designing a hybrid vehicle charging station for the marine industry.