Velocity Fund awards $25K to hardware, software and science startups

Black Box Technologies, Lani Labs, Site2Site and Varden Labs take home $25K prizes at the 13th Velocity Fund Finals

Today at the Velocity Fund Finals, the winning companies represented a wide array of startup types: hardware, software and science. During the Velocity Fund Finals $25K competition, 10 companies pitched their businesses to a panel of judges representing the investment, startup and business communities. Judges weighed innovation, market potential, market viability and overall pitch.

One winning company, Black Box Technologies, works out of the Velocity Science workspace. They are developing ink for anti-counterfeit application that uses a unique signature which once applied is verified by scanning the object with a phone. The team will use their $25,000 prize to further app development and image processing, as well as creating new nanotech ink formulas.

Other $25K winners today are:

• Lani Labs: Lani is a payment and automation system for 3D printers.
• Site2Site: Site2Site is a platform that automates payroll, invoicing, job costing, scheduling and much more for construction companies.
• Varden Labs: Varden Labs is developing autonomous shuttles to provide effortless transportation in campuses and private communities.

“The Velocity Fund has helped over 50 companies to date, giving out more than $1 million in funding. I am thrilled that we are once again able to help inspire and support innovation. Today we saw pitches for companies that will be incredibly impactful. Our ability to help these companies start on the path to success is fundamental to our work at Velocity,” said Mike Kirkup, Director of Velocity.

An additional 10 teams of University of Waterloo students competed for three prizes of $5,000 and access to Velocity workspaces. The winners of the Velocity $5K are:

• Best Pitch: Arc Home – developing Breeze, a smart air register that integrates with smart thermostats to give homeowners greater temperature control.
• Most Innovative: Thalo – building a new display technology to increase the battery life and daylight visibility of mobile devices.
• People’s Choice: HiredWell – developing a mobile-optimized solution that enables brick-and-mortar businesses to seamlessly gather all required information from walk-in job seekers and quickly screen this information with an easy-to-use dashbord.

The judges for the Velocity Fund $25K competition were JS Cournoyer of Real Ventures, Karamdeep Nijar of iNovia Capital, Mike Stork of Stork Holdings and Ted Livingston of Kik Interactive. Judging the Velocity Fund $5K competition were Wayne Chang of the Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre at Waterloo, Andrew Jackson of the Accelerator Centre and Steve McCartney of Communitech Startup Services.

Want to re-live the excitement? Watch the pitches again at our Livestream archive. Check back soon for application dates for Velocity Fund Finals, Fall 2015!