Announcing the Velocity Fund F17 $5K finalists

This past Wednesday and Thursday, students from across the University of Waterloo pitched their early-stage startup ideas at the Velocity Fund $5K Qualifiers. Of the 36 students who pitched their exciting startup ideas, 10 finalists were selected by a panel of judges to move on and compete at the Velocity Fund Finals on November 30th for the chance to win one of three $5,000 prizes. The $5K competition will start at 11am, and the $25K competition will start at 1pm, where an additional 10 teams will compete for $115,000 in funding to help build their businesses.

The Velocity Fund Finals $5K competition provides equity-free funding to early-stage startups to help remove some of the barriers that hinder innovation and entrepreneurial growth. Each participant at the Velocity Fund $5K Qualifiers had exactly 3 minutes to pitch their solution to a real-world problem to a panel of startup founders judging the event, as well as a packed audience of their peers. The judges provided feedback to each student on their pitching style, as well as valuable insight to help improve their business idea. The best five contenders from each night were selected to move on to the finals.

We are pleased to announce this term’s Velocity Fund $5K finalists:

1Mentor
1Mentor is a gamified collaborative educational platform that connects companies to emerging talent at universities.

GreenSorbs
GreenSorbs is designing a sorbent boom to clean up oil spills using a material made from landfill waste.

ENVRENVR is developing technology that adds physical feedback to enhance virtual reality experiences.

HoloFab
HoloFab uses augmented reality to improve modular fabrication in the construction industry.

HolyGrail
Holy Grail is a beauty content, community, and e-commerce platform that leverages the eruption of influencer marketing.

Natural Interest
Natural Interest is establishing a fund that offers debt financing only to sustainable food enterprises in Ontario.

PolyGone
PolyGone is developing washing machine products to capture microfibres as they are released from synthetic textiles.

QALM
QALM is a smart steam trap monitoring solution that makes the invisible leaks visible.

SannTek
SannTek is developing a nanotechnology based sensor to quantify marijuana intoxication.

TenderTool
TenderTool makes the tendering process between building managers and contractors seamless and transparent.

Make sure to come out to the Velocity Fund Finals on November 30th to watch some great pitches from these $5K and $25K companies as they compete for $125,000 in funding. Register to attend or join in via live stream for your chance to win 1 of 5 Google Home smart speakers, just for participating as an audience member! We will also be providing free boxed lunches to the first 200 audience members.

The Fall 2017 Velocity Fund Finals is sponsored by Thomson Reuters, Sequoia, and Magna.

Thomson Reuters provides professionals with the intelligence, technology and human expertise they need to find trusted answers in the financial and risk, legal, tax and accounting, and media markets. The new Thomson Reuters Toronto Technology Centre will create 1,500 high-quality technology jobs in Canada and accelerate research for cognitive computing, visualization, UX, and cloud development.