• Vena Medical co-founders’ Michael Phillips’ (BASc ’17) and Phillip Cooper’s (BASc ’17) Micro Angioscope ™ captures colour video from inside the brain, allowing neurosurgeons at The Ottawa Hospital to diagnose and treat a problem that would otherwise have been undetectable. For the first time ever, a camera can go places in the body that no other camera has seen before.
• ICSPI, a nanoscale imaging company, introduces the world’s first automated atomic force microscope (AFM), a tool that can image materials with atomic level resolution (0.000000001millimetres). By automating AFM imaging, they are dramatically compressing the time to the next breakthrough that could change the course of technological discovery and development.

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Capitalizing and merging to grow faster

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• Float founders Ruslan Nikolaev (BCS ’20),Griffin Keglevich and Rob Khazzam secure a key$50 million financing deal from Silicon Valley Bank, enabling Float to expand its innovative ChargeCard program.
• Co-founders Evelyn Allen and Michael Pope lead Evercloak Inc. to an oversubscribed seed round of$2 million, propelling the commercialization of its groundbreaking technology that radically reduces energy required for commercial and residential air conditioning and dehumidification systems.
• Founder Sadegh Raeisi (PhD’14) of Foqus TechnologiesInc. receives funding through the Regional Quantum Initiative to accelerate their quantum based solution that makes Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan times10 times faster. Their technology also generates higher-resolution images than existing technology allowing for earlier detection of disease.
• Tenomix secures $2 million in an oversubscribed Canadian funding round to advance their cancer care robotics system. The robot uses ultrasound and artificial intelligence to automate the current task of manual lymph node screening and can significantly improve colon cancer staging accuracy.
• Palitronica develops a system to secure vital components to the critical infrastructure supply chain and has been awarded $1 million in funding from Canada’s National Cybersecurity Consortium (NCC) for the three-year PASCAL project.
• Coastal Carbon receives $1.6 million in funding to accelerate regenerative seaweed farming and ocean restoration, and scale blue carbon initiatives, all presenting important opportunities in the fight against climate change.‍
• QS Quacquarelli Symonds, the world’s largest global higher education network acquires the Waterloo grown startup 1Mentor Inc. co-founded by Esteban Veintimilla (MBET ’22, BMath ’18). 1Mentor bridges the gap between industry demands and students’ abilities using artificial intelligence.‍
• Vital Bio unveils a fully validated diagnostics system providing 20-minute blood test results from a desktop sized device, raises $65 million since inception.

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Starting local, scaling local

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• FluidAI invests more than $25 million to increase & build an automated assembly line in the Waterloo Region. They will create 38 new, good-paying jobs in the process. Co-founders Youssef Helwa (MASc’17), Amr Abdelgawad and Mohamed Okasha are leading the way in medical innovation.
• Ceragen, Scribenote andH2nanO expand their foot print and open their own office and lab spaces in the Waterloo region. They join the likes of numerous Velocity founders.
• Landscape Direct grows sales by 40 per cent and expands beyond Canada to the United States market.

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Recognizing value

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• MedMe Health relieves health care pressures during COVID-19 with software that allows pharmacies to schedule, conduct, document and follow-up on pharmacy clinical services. They continue to build on their success after being named a top health innovator to watch by many.
• One of the biggest names in Major League Baseball, Shohei Ohtani, uses the Trajekt Sports Arc as an essential part of his spring training. The revolutionary robotic pitching arm developed by co-founders Joshua Pope (BASc ’19) and Rowan Ferrabee (BASc ’19) has a home in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ state of the art indoor training facility.
• Making a difference in their respective fields; nine founders of current and alumni Velocity companies are listed in Forbes 30 under 30 for 2024.