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Flexible support for
those solving the

world’s greatest

challenges.

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Who we are

Founded by the University of Waterloo, Velocity equips and guides founders to build companies that scale at the earliest stages of business building.

Our mission is to create the conditions for founders to maximize their growth. We have 15 years of successes to lean on.

Learn more about our companies Meet our team

Velocity by the numbers

$26B

collective enterprise value by Velocity companies to date

5,000+

jobs created by Velocity alumni companies

400+

companies incubated since 2008

Full-stack resources for early-stage founders and students

Since 2008, Velocity has worked to understand the needs of founders during the riskiest and earliest time of business building. Finding connections, practical and authentic business expertise, product development know-how, space to build a team and product, and risk-tolerant capital can be accessed at Velocity.

Learn more about our programs

Flexibility

Personalized business development and product development support, available when you need it. With in-house expertise and facilities at Velocity, and through the University of Waterloo, founders productize technologies faster and with less capital.

Velocity is one of the only place where founders can access resources to build a company AND build a product.

Learn more about our Startup facilities Learn more about Student facilities

Betting on industry-shaking technologies

Join a supportive community of founders working to change the world. At Velocity, we encourage cross-pollination between founders no matter the type of technology business they are building. Velocity supports startups in any industry and founders from all backgrounds. We support founders from Waterloo and founders excited to connect to Waterloo through Velocity.

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Our heritage and strength

Velocity and the University of Waterloo

Waterloo is at the forefront of innovation, is home to transformational research and inspired learning and is Canada’s best university for startup founders according to the 2023 PitchBook university rankings. Since 2008, the Waterloo community fuels Velocity as we turn entrepreneurial spirit and innovation into extraordinary companies.

Through Velocity programs on the Waterloo campus, students, researchers and faculty can validate their ideas and develop business strategies through workshops, hackathons, networking, one-on-one coaching, grant funding competitions and more.

As they grow beyond Waterloo, our successes give back to the community, feeding the next generation of entrepreneurs, small business owners, and innovators.

Learn more about our student programs

Located at the
heart of Canada’s Innovation District

Velocity is co-located at the University of Waterloo and in Kitchener-Waterloo’s Tannery building. In 2024, Velocity will move to our new headquarters at the heart of the innovation district in downtown Kitchener.

This 90,000 square-foot facility is close to the University of Waterloo’s School of Pharmacy, the Waterloo Regional Campus of McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Medicine and Communitech.

The Innovation Arena is also close to dozens of Velocity alumni scaling within 5 km, including Faire, Vidyard, Nicoya, Kenota, ApplyBoard and other notable tech companies like Google, Shopify, D2L, Axonify etc.

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