The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation is reminding participants in its Breakthru competition to get their full business plans in to organizers by Jan. 10.

The innovation agency holds the Breakthru competition every other year with the goal of helping young companies to get off the ground with funding and mentorship. NBIF will award $750,000 in cash and in-kind services to the top three New Brunswick companies. And for the first time it will set aside $250,000 for a company from other parts of Canada that wants to set up base in New Brunswick.

The business plans will help the judges select the semi-finalists for the competition. All semi-finalists will be required to attend the competition’s second bootcamp on Jan. 28.

NBIF Chief Executive Calvin Milbury said the competition, now in its 10th year, has attracted a record number of entrants.  Some 61 teams comprising 141 people entered the 2017 competition, and all but nine of the entries were teams rather than individuals. There were seven national entries, made up of 17 participants.

Three provincial winners and the national winner will divide $1 million in cash and services, so four young companies will be growing in the province with an average of $250,000 of development capital or expertise. The prizes include professional services like legal, accounting and marketing advice. Milbury likes to call the prize a “company in a box”.

In 2015, Breakthru was won by Castaway Golf, which developed an automated system for retrieving golf balls from water hazards, which could then be sold on to golfers. 

The winners will be announced at the Breakthru LIVE 2017 gala at the Fredericton Convention Centre on March 23, 2017.