We’re pleased to announce that we’re partnering with the Atlantic Canadian team at the MIT Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program, or REAP, to generate data on the startup community in Atlantic Canada.

As many of you know, Entrevestor has surveyed founders across Atlantic Canada for the past three years to gain keen insights into the growth of innovation companies and the health of our ecosystem. This year, our survey was happening concurrently with one carried out by the Reap team. To ensure that founders aren’t belaboured with too many surveys, we’re combining these surveys. We're going to use the REAP survey, which some of you may have seen on the Halifax or New Brunswick Startup Community Facebook pages. 

Many of you have already completed this survey. If you haven’t, could you please take a few minutes to do so. It will help immeasurably in producing the data we need in the efforts to build a better ecosystem in the region.

You can find the survey here.

REAP is a program offered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that helps regions to foster economic growth and social progress.  The program matches MIT experts with regional representatives to develop strategies in addressing specific economic challenges. This year it accepted a group from Nova Scotia comprising business people, academics and officials from federal and provincial governments. The goal is to bring leaders from the region to one of the world’s greatest academic institutes and develop plans to improve the economic environment in Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada.

The program drew some controversy in Nova Scotia last year when it was reported that Dalhousie University was funding the initiative. However, we’ve been assured that external fundraising has covered the cost of the Atlantic Canadian team to go through the program, and the core team members are volunteering their time and covering their own costs.

The REAP team has been surveying founders in the region. Entrevestor will now help out by contacting our list of Atlantic Canadian entrepreneurs and ask them to complete the survey. We want to emphasize that we need data from across Atlantic Canada. The more responses we get from across the region, the better our understanding will be of how the startup community is evolving.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Yours,

Peter Moreira