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Tech Start-ups Mozzaz and Plum Graduate from the Accelerator Centre

Waterloo (Ontario), CANADA, Thursday, March 12, 2015 – The Accelerator Centre® (AC), an award-winning centre for the cultivation of technology entrepreneurship located in Waterloo, Ontario, announced today the graduation of two more tech start-ups from its rigorous incubation program. Mozzaz and Plum become the AC’s 44th and 45th graduates, joining a celebrated list of highly successful AC graduate companies including, Axonify, Clearpath Robotics, Intellijoint Surgical, Kik, Miovision, Top Hat Monocle and more.

The founders of health tech start-up Mozzaz, Rini Singh and Sammy Wahab each have a deep and personal motivation to bring modern technology to people with chronic illness and/or developmental disabilities. The company’s vision is to provide affordable, mobile and Cloud-enabled solutions to assist individuals with complex healthcare needs, while providing better connectivity and collaboration to the care teams who support that person. The company offers a personalized care app, called TalkingTiles; a coordinated care solution called MozzazCare, and a clinical management solution called Mozzaz CarePRO.

Frustrated by their own hiring experiences, Plum’s founders Caitlin and Neil MacGregor and Christine Bird were inspired to create Plum, a revolutionary new hiring solution. Plum’s cloud-based hiring solution identifies job applicants with the highest potential and matches them to a company’s culture and position using the science of psychology. Plum assesses each applicant’s problem solving ability and attitude before a resume is read, allowing employers to find hidden gem candidates and predict their future performance on the job even before they are hired.

“Health and HR tech are two of the hottest and fastest growing segments within the start-up landscape and we are happy to be graduating innovative high potential companies in these markets,” says Paul Salvini, CEO of the Accelerator Centre.

Congratulations Graduates!

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AC Grad Kik strives to become the third great network

Kik’s pursuit of the youth market has kept the Waterloo, Ont.-based company largely off the mainstream radar.
“I think we’re the most under-the-radar company of our size in Canada, certainly. If you were to go to the average Canadian and say, ‘Have you heard of Kik?’ probably everybody would say, ‘No,’ ” Mr. Livingston said.

“And yet, on Christmas Day, if you were to look at the top free apps on iTunes, Kik was the only Canadian company in the top 100 (at No. 7).”

Securing mainstream attention isn’t a priority for Mr. Livingston. He’s primarily focused on adding new users, many of them teenagers. The company claims it adds 250,000 users a day, but won’t say how many actually stay as active users.

Mr. Livingston said his goal is to create the “third great network” (after telephone and the Internet). That goal may seem far-fetched for a mere chat app, but if Mr. Livingston is to achieve it, he must boost Kik’s profile. “We need a much bigger reputation,” he said. “We need to be known as a hot company.”

Founded in 2009 by a group of University of Waterloo students, Kik has raised a total of $70.5 million, including $38.3 million late last year.

To read the full article, click here.

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Intellijoint Surgical receives $550,000

Intellijoint Surgical has received up to $550,000 from FedDev Ontario to develop and commercialize the company’s innovative Intellijoint HIP™ sensor system for orthopaedic surgery. The announcement was made by MP Peter Braid on site at Intellijoint on Tuesday March 6th, as part of a larger FedDev funding announcement.

“We are extremely grateful for the FedDev Ontario Investing in Business Innovation initiative and its continued support for great start-ups like Intellijoint Surgical”, says Armen Bakirtzian, CEO of Intellijoint. “With FedDev Ontario’s support we are able to accelerate the commercialization Intellijoint HIP™.”

Intellijoint HIP™ is a miniaturized system consisting of two disposable sensors and a display unit. It is designed to help orthopaedic surgeons in the selection and positioning of orthopaedic implants during hip replacement surgery. “Intellijoint Surgical’s technology has been leveraged by surgeons in hundreds of surgeries in Canada. Now the company is  expanding into new markets,” said Peter Braid, MP for Kitchener-Waterloo. “In fact, in September of last year, Massena Memorial Hospital in New York became the first hospital in the United States to use the technology.”

Intellijoint Surgical was one of three companies to receive FedDev investment, with Auvik Networks and Dejero also receiving funding rounds as part of the announcement. Overall, FedDev committed $1,775,000 to the three companies, which is anticipated to allow for the creation of up to 55 new jobs in Waterloo Region.

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AC Grad Kik adds video option for its 200 million registered users

Mobile messaging app Kik has added native video capture to its service as it lays the groundwork to offer more interactive content options for its 200 million registered users.

An update to Kik for iOS and Android today now lets users record videos of up to 15 seconds from inside their chat windows. The feature includes a full-screen playback option, and videos will loop continuously.

The new addition is pretty smooth, but video capture is a standard part of any communications service these days.Kik Video SMKik — which offers a sophisticated in-chat browser for sharing web content — admits it is playing catch up here.

Now that it has established its own video platform as a base, however, the Canada-based company plans to go forth and be more creative. Or, at least, offer its users the chance to unleash new shades of creativity on its service.

To read the full article, click here.

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AC Grad Axonify announces multi-million dollar deal with Bi-Lo Holdings

Axonify announced that Bi-Lo Holdings has adopted its award-winning eLearning platform, in a multi-year, multi-million dollar deal. Bi-Lo needed a solution that was fresh, engaging, personalized and proven to drive knowledge, values and expectations to its more than 70,000 associates. Axonify offered an approach that was fundamentally different than the historical way in which Bi-Lo Holdings had approached knowledge delivery, particularly in the way the Axonify platform creates an accelerated and continuous learning culture on a daily basis, in a fast, fun and effective way.

To read the full press release, click here.

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AC Grad Clearpath Robotics sets sights on a robotic workforce

Inside the headquarters of Clearpath Robotics, a robot revolution is underway.

Where a receptionist would have once welcomed your arrival, there’s now a little robot named “Glados” hanging from the ceiling above a vacant table. It scans the waiting room to detect movement and offer its greeting.

On a shelf amongst an assortment of engineering awards, sits “How to Survive a Robot Uprising,” a tongue-in-cheek survival guide for newcomers.

It’s a glimpse of how co-founder and chief executive Matt Rendall envisions the future, as robots change the way people live and work.

“Before the home, our vision is a robot in every company and every job site,” he said. “There are still so many jobs that humans are not well suited to do.”

A recent study from the Boston Consulting Group shows that investment in industrial robots will grow 10 per cent per year in the world’s 25-biggest export nations through 2025 — overshadowing the current growth of two to three per cent.

Companies will be motivated by how cost-effective and efficient robots are compared to the human workforce, the study said. It’s estimated that labour expenses can be reduced by 24 per cent in Canada, and cut even further in regions like South Korea and Japan.

Rendall believes that’s where Clearpath comes in, as the Kitchener, Ont.-based company rolls out a fleet of robots to automate what it calls the “dullest, dirtiest and deadliest” jobs in the world, spanning industries like manufacturing, agriculture and the military.

To read the full article on CTV News, click here.

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Feature on AC Grad Miovision in Wired Magazine

Miovision is, in many ways, answering a call from cities worldwide that are seeking ways of unclogging congested roadways without building more of them. Technology like Miovision is developing could help make travel less painful while addressing broader societal problems like pollution and driver fatalities. But while the size of the market is vast, so is the competition from entrenched players and other startups looking to bring novel technologies to market.

That’s one reason Miovision plans to use this cash infusion to expand its technology beyond car counting and turn it into a traffic management system for so-called “smart cities.” Until now, Miovision has helped cities collect data on what’s happening at a given intersection, by installing its video systems at that intersection and analyzing the data afterward.

But simply providing the data, McBride realized, could make Miovision just another commodity product. After all, there are other video detection systems out there, as well as lower tech options, like magnetic loops embedded in the road that record passing traffic. Now, McBride wants to help cities find practical ways to use that data as well.

The company is slowly rolling out new hardware that will connect switchboards at each intersection to the cloud so street lights can communicate with each other and respond to traffic data from the video feed in real time. In other words, where once traffic data was updated every year or so by a college kid at the side of the road, now, it’ll be updated every instant.

To read the full article, click here.

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Robotics Business Review names AC Grad Clearpath Robotics to their list of top 50 companies to watch in 2015

Clearpath compressedKitchener, ON, Canada – February 16, 2015 – Robotics Business Review (RBR) has unveiled its fourth annual RBR50 list, naming Clearpath Robotics as one of the most noteworthy companies in the global robotics industry for 2015.

RBR50 companies are recognized based on their innovation, groundbreaking application(s), commercial success and potential, and represent many different levels and facets of the robotics ecosystem.

“We’re thrilled to have made the RBR50 list; the entire Clearpath team is very proud of the company we’ve built,” said Ryan Gariepy, Chief Technology Officer at Clearpath Robotics. “We’re incredibly grateful to see that our efforts to accelerate robotics development continue to be acknowledged and that a growing number of organizations are now making robotics a critical part of their long term strategy.”

Read the full announcement here.

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AC Client Apartmint Brings Renters and Landlords Together

By Joe Lee
Market Research Analyst
MaRS Discovery District

Are you looking for a place to live in Toronto? Perhaps renting an apartment or a condo?

If you are in this booming rental market, you know three things:
•Prices are outrageous;
•Reasonable units can be snapped up within 24 hours;
•The process of renting is horrific.

As someone who is currently in this market, nothing has stuck out to me more than how badly the rental process is. Encountering fake Craigslist listing? Check. (No “Sandy”, you cannot have my credit card information via email.)

Clicking on an apartment listing in Etobicoke even after you’ve restricted the search to downtown Toronto on Kijiji? Check. (And I love Etobicoke!)

Being interrogated by the landlord while you’re viewing her rental unit? Check. (Yes, I have a job. Thank you. Yes, I really do.)

AApartmint logo resized Waterloo Accelerator Centre startup called Apartmint believes that it has found a better way – by bringing the entire rental process online for renters and landlords together. Founded by Margaret Cichosz, Davy Chiu and Ignacio Mongrell (full disclosure: they all graduated from University of Waterloo’s Master of Business, Entrepreneurship, and Technology program like myself), Apartmint has recently expanded its services in Toronto this month.

Read the full blog here.

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AC Grad Miovision on Greenbiz.com: Fighting urban gridlock

trafficTraffic. Everyone would like less of it, and there are dozens of apps and services dedicated to helping city planners with everything from rerouting transit services to adjusting tolls during rush hours.

And don’t expect that momentum to fade anytime soon. Market research firm Gartner estimates spending on technology for intelligent transportation management at $151 billion by 2018.

Two startups in particular, Miovision Technologies and Urban Engines, are stepping on the accelerator with plans to put more of this information into the hands of city planners and commuters through broadly available cloud services.The former just scored another $24 million in venture financing to speed development, while the latter is publishing its mapping software so that cities and third-party developers can take advantage of its routing algorithms.

Read the full post here.