Ontario startups receive $5.4 million from Investment Accelerator Fund

Brings total investment in new enterprises to $26.6 million

MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund

TORONTO, Sept. 25, 2012 /CNW/ - Twelve Ontario companies have received funding from the Investment Accelerator Fund (IAF), bringing the program's total investment in Ontario's emerging enterprises to $26.6 million in 57 companies since its inception.

As Ontario's most active seed-stage investor, the IAF helps startups develop their businesses and position them for further investment by angels and venture capitalists. It is funded by the Government of Ontario and delivered by MaRS.

"We are beyond pleased to have the IAF as significant investors in Axonify," said Carol Leaman, CEO of Axonify. "Their support, professionalism, suggestions and connections are helping shape our company into a world-leading, next-generation eLearning platform. We were grateful for their early belief in what we were doing and the capital invested is allowing us to execute on a plan to dominate our specific segment in the Human Capital Management space," Leaman said.

The fund invests up to $500,000 in companies with the potential to become global leaders in their fields and provide sustainable economic benefits to Ontario. To date, IAF portfolio companies employ more than 800 staff in high-value jobs, fuelling Ontario's innovation economy. Funding and support from the IAF will help these innovative companies introduce new technologies that will make businesses more efficient, benefit quality of life, improve our health and protect our environment.

"Ontario is proud to support these innovative companies that are turning new ideas into great jobs," said Brad Duguid, Minister of Economic Development and Innovation. "We are proud to support the development of new technology that improves the quality of life here in Ontario and around the world."

Barry Gekiere, Managing Director of the IAF, notes that the program has now invested in over 50 world class technology companies with truly exciting growth potential, which translates into job and wealth creation in the province. "As an active seed-stage investor we work to assist our investee companies in raising additional capital from the broader investment community," said Gekiere. "The IAF's success is determined by the ability of our companies to continue to grow and prosper, and we help them secure much needed growth capital. IAF investee companies have sourced over $119 million in follow-on financing — 4.7 times the IAF's investment — from top-tier venture firms and angel investors in Canada and the US to assist in their growth. The IAF has already started to see the benefit with over $4 million in return of capital from successful investments that the IAF can reinvest in new companies," Gekiere said.

Since December 2011, the IAF has invested up to $500,000 in each of the following companies:

Axonify (@Axonify) is a technology company using concepts of behavioural science combined with "gamification" to change the way companies train their employees. The system creates a real-time, personalized knowledge map, employee-by-employee, which identifies and closes information gaps. Participation and success rates are measured and correlated to specific corporate outcomes that drive revenue or reduce expenses. Customers include Pep Boys, Walmart and Toys "R" Us Canada.
Location: Waterloo
Date of Investment: March 2012

Better The World provides technology that powers innovative fundraising and social responsibility programs. FlipGive is the company's unique digital marketplace that connects merchants to consumers through peer-to-peer fundraising. The platform revolutionizes grassroots fundraising and corporate philanthropy, allowing companies to drive sales while creating positive social impact in their communities.
Location: Toronto
Date of Investment: September 2012

CreativeD is an entertainment software company that recently launched Decksi, a next-generation distribution solution that transforms content into a new form of social currency. By allowing fans to collect, trade, gift and share the official content they are passionate about, Decksi turns video, music and pictures into collectable digital merchandise, distributed across web, social and mobile platforms. Decksi gives content owners a powerful, cost-effective and scalable platform to engage fans, measure goals with data analytics, generate new revenue and achieve their digital marketing objectives.
Location: Toronto
Date of Investment: January 2012

CrowdCare is building a next-generation customer care platform that will enable automated diagnosis and resolution of technical problems on smartphones, tablets and smartTVs. Initially focused on the fragmented Android ecosystem, CrowdCare will reduce the time, frustration and cost of supporting customers using Android devices.
Location: Toronto
Date of Investment: September 2012

Horizon Studios launched CATALYSTA, a platform that empowers sales force activation. The social platform engages, motivates and rewards sales teams and provides a market-ready SaaS solution that enables businesses to increase sales and product recommendations and differentiate themselves from competitors in an innovative learning environment. It is fully integrated in social networks where sales reps are already spending time.
Location: Toronto
Date of Investment: July 2012

Maintenance Assistant is a leading provider of Computerized Maintenance Management Software, often referred to as CMMS. The preventive maintenance software helps companies track and manage work orders, preventive maintenance, scheduled maintenance and general Enterprise Asset Management (EAM). The cloud-based maintenance solution helps to drive down maintenance costs and machine downtime, and increases profitability and industry or company maintenance compliance.
Location: Toronto
Date of Investment: December 2011

MetaFLO is a provider of leading-edge proprietary methods, reagents and equipment for the solidification and stabilization of continuous-flow waste streams. The company's slurry solidification systems, in combination with reagents, are the only technologies on the market that can solidify and stabilize liquid waste streams into disposable, dumpable solids in minutes, eliminating the need for costly vacuum trucks and liquid disposal fees.
Location: Toronto
Date of Investment: June 2012

Shopcaster (@shopcaster) is a social marketplace for local retailers and shoppers. Shopcaster is a simple-to-use web and mobile platform that empowers retailers to manage their online presence and to display their products beautifully, easily and instantly on the Shopcaster website, as well as through Twitter and Facebook. Shoppers visiting Shopcaster are able to discover new shops and neighbourhoods in their city. They can view a live feed of the latest and most unique products and purchase them in-store or online.
Location: Toronto
Date of Investment: June 2012

Sweet Tooth (@sweettooth) enables merchants to offer unique and effective loyalty programs for their customers. Sweet Tooth is the world's easiest-to-use customer loyalty software. It allows for optimization of any loyalty program to perfectly engage a particular customer base or target market.
Location: Waterloo
Date of Investment: March 2012

Therapeutic Monitoring Systems
Therapeutic Monitoring Systems (TMS) is developing point-of-care clinical decision support software that will materially improve patient care in hospital ICU and emergency departments. Seamlessly integrating with existing monitors, the software analyzes patient vital sign variability in order to detect changes in patient health status not otherwise observable using current standard-of-care monitoring approaches.
Location: Ottawa
Date of Investment: December 2011

Top Hat Monocle (@TopHatMonocle) is a web-and mobile-based classroom response system currently used by more than 200,000 students at over 200 universities. It allows instructors to conduct polls, quizzes and interactive demonstrations in class. Students can participate in class using any device they own, such as their cellphone, smartphone, iPad or laptop; they can ask questions without interrupting the lecturer and receive instant feedback.
Location: Toronto
Date of Investment: December 2011

360pi (@360_pi) has developed a cloud-based platform that delivers an unprecedented level of price transparency to retailers, who require a complete understanding of competitive and marketplace prices at all times — a time-consuming, expensive and often overwhelming process. Using proprietary web crawling technology, their platform delivers continuous reporting on millions of product price points, allowing retailers to gain a competitive advantage.
Location: Ottawa
Date of Investment: April 2012

About the Investment Accelerator Fund
The Investment Accelerator Fund (IAF) (@MaRSIAF) provides up to $500,000 in seed funding to qualified emerging companies in Ontario. As a critical component of the Ontario Network of Excellence (ONE), the IAF supports the launch and development of innovative companies in Ontario's priority sectors of advanced materials and manufacturing, information technology, cleantech and life sciences.

About MaRS
MaRS Discovery District (www.marsdd.com) (@MaRSDD) is a mission-driven innovation centre located in Toronto. MaRS works with partners to catalyze, accelerate and amplify innovation. MaRS supports entrepreneurs building Canada's next generation of growth companies.

SOURCE: MaRS Discovery District

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