With the Atlantic Canadian startup ecosystem expanding its support infrastructure for female founders and their participation in the innovation economy increasing, a related trend may be starting to emerge: that of more women taking on the chief executive role at existing companies.

At Entrevestor, we’re beginning to dive into the numbers on diversity, equity and inclusion for our annual Startup Data Report. And we’ve noticed at least four promising companies that are now being led by female executives after male founders or co-founders departed the role.

In 2022, the most recent year for which we have released data, 22.4 percent of East Coast startups had female founders, up from 19 percent the year prior. On its own, that rate of change is too slight to represent meaningful progress — particularly since those companies accounted for just 14 percent of the private capital raised that year.

But trends in the broader innovation economy hint at changing attitudes. Virtually all of the startup support organizations in Atlantic Canada offer programming aimed at supporting female entrepreneurs. Sandpiper Ventures, the Halifax-based venture capital shop that specializes in backing women-led businesses, is raising a second fund slated to be larger than its $20 million SV Fund 1. And the Women’s Equity Lab Atlantic angel fund is now up and running, representing Atlantic Canada’s only pan-regional angel network.

While we do not wish to speak for the executives involved, and much additional social change is still needed, we do believe that more women in the top job at high-profile startups like Halifax-based Hollo Medical and Newfoundland and Labrador’s PolyUnity reflects this evolution in the ecosystem.

“There’s a keen eye to support women and women-identifying founders,” said Kathryn Lockhart, CEO of virtual startup accelerator Propel in an interview. A former resident company at the accelerator, Eigen Innovations, is among those that recently appointed a female chief executive.

“Overall, what we’re seeing is we’re catching up with the rest of the country in Atlantic Canada. Women are amazing entrepreneurs, and it’s sort of about time.”

Propel’s DEI numbers for its client startups are also dramatically better than for the ecosystem as a whole, with 53 percent having women on their founding teams.

Lockhart said that the next step for innovation economy players is to “double down” on ensuring that founders from underrepresented groups are well-networked and have opportunities to access funding as they face a tough economic environment.

“I know the whole ecosystem hopes that anyone wanting to take the entrepreneurial leap can find the support that they are looking for in order to de-risk their journey,” Lockhart said.

“I do think that we are seeing some of the recognizable East Coast friendliness and support modernize and open up broader arms to maker sure that this really does feel like an inclusive community.”

Here are four startups with recent leadership changes that we believe are noteworthy:

Eigen Innovations
Led by CEO Erin Barrett and headquartered in Fredericton, Eigen uses AI to help machines manage large amounts of data and identity the causes of quality control issues at factories via machine vision.

The company was founded in 2012 by mechanical engineer Scott Everett and University of New Brunswick professor Rickey Dubay, with Barrett joining as vice president of sales and marketing in late 2017 from rural ISP Xplorenet Communications. She became chief revenue officer in 2020 and CEO in 2022, with Everett staying on as executive chair.

Eigen’s machine vision technology now processes about 600 million images daily for customers, and the company works with global businesses like Intel.

Specifically, Eigen is part of Intel’s Partner Alliance program, which offers businesses access to Intel’s technology, technical training programs and software for designing marketing campaigns. The company’s AI system uses Intel’s version of the OpenVINO toolkit, which is a software platform that helps computers emulate human vision. 

Swept
Swept, the former Halifax cleaning company turned software-maker for the janitorial industry, appointed veteran sales exec Michelle Audas chief executive in September.

Founded in 2014 as a commercial and residential cleaning company by Michael Brown and current Volta CEO Matt Cooper, Swept pivoted to software in 2016 and hired Audas in 2017, promoting her to chief revenue officer in 2020.

Now, Swept’s software helps connect cleaners with their bosses and customers, letting the employer check in with their cleaners on the job. Last month, the company also added new features to its software to support businesses that offer one-time cleanup services, such as for construction sites.

Hollo Medical
Halifax-based Hollo Medical swapped out its CEO last August, replacing one co-founder with another as Sara Fedullo assumed the role.

Former CEO David Hodgson, a physician, became chief medical officer and is now completing his residency. His co-founder and Hollo's former chief operating officer, Sara Fedullo, replaced him as chief executive.

A trained engineer, Fedullo said last month the duo are partnering with an international distributor on their go-to-market strategy for the "Bre-Z Chamber" — a spacer for use with asthma inhalers, but small enough to fit in a child’s pocket, unlike existing, cumbersome products.

When Hollo was first founded, its team included Fedullo, Hodgson and one employee. Now, two more have joined and Fedullo expects to hire another handful of people this year. The company recently closed a preliminary fundraising round, and she has said there will potentially be more to come.

PolyUnity
Led by Jacqueline Lee, who was previously chief financial officer for several other companies, St. John’s-based PolyUnity, specializes in using agile manufacturing processes to make products for hospitals.

The company was founded four years ago by three Memorial University medical students, Michael Bartellas, Stephen Ryan and Travis Pickett, to 3D print medical simulation models. They aimed to let medical professionals anywhere in the world download the designs from the their website and use them for training.

As the pandemic ended and global supply chains seized up, the company’s healthcare provider clients reported that they faced an even more pressing need. Many basic products, like the trays used to transport COVID-19 vaccine doses, were scarce or unattainable. So PolyUnity pivoted, deploying its manufacturing tech to address the shortages.

Lee said in November that PolyUnity started with two employees and was in the process of hiring its twentieth staff member. Its first ever capital raise is also in the works.