Toronto - Eleven ventures have successfully graduated from the Creative Destruction Lab, a business incubator at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.
Combined with the ventures who graduated in the Lab’s first cohort last June, these ventures have collectively generated approximately $130 million in equity value.
During their eight months in the Lab, ventures regularly meet with the Lab’s Group of 7 Fellows (G7), a group of nine entrepreneurs who successfully created and grew, massively scalable, technology-based businesses who include Rotman MBA graduates Daniel Debow and Nigel Stokes. The ventures meet regularly with the G7 to set specific milestones to guide the allocation of their resources. Milestones are of two types: business and technical. The careful selection of milestones is conducted to most efficiently reduce risk associated with the venture and maximize equity value as quickly as possible. Fifteen ventures started in the Lab last fall but only eleven graduated earlier this month.
The successful ventures this year who raised or are raising seed capital, among meeting other milestones, include:
- Taplytics – A cloud-based mobile development and optimization platform that transforms existing static and release cycle-driven apps and makes them completely dynamic.
- Push – The first fitness tracking device that measures strength.
- Bridgit – An application that enables construction companies to track project deficiencies simply and in real time.
- OTI Lumionics – A low-cost manufacturing solution for organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs).
- Lumotune – A system that electrically tunes the transparency of windows for privacy and energy-saving purposes.
- Piinpoint – An online platform that uses machine learning to identify optimal new store locations while centralizing demographic, real estate, traffic, and municipal data.
- Whirlscape – The developer of Minuum, a one-dimensional keyboard that enables typing on wearable devices and saves smartphone screen space.
- Instant Chemistry – A firm that uses genetics-based algorithms for the assessment of human compatibility.
- Kiwi Wearables –An open-source wearable computing community for developers and consumers, their product (the Glance) is the first smart accessory for regular watches.
- NV Bots – The first cloud-controlled automated 3D printer company.
- T-Bot – The first automated loose-leaf tea vending machine company.
“We are excited to see how much the second cohort of ventures has grown since they first applied back in September 2013,” says Jesse Rodgers, Director of the Creative Destruction Lab. “We had an increase in both the overall quality and quantity of applications this year, and it was really great to see eleven ventures successfully complete the program.”
The Creative Destruction Lab is currently accepting venture applications for its third cohort.
About the Creative Destruction Lab
Founded in 2012 by Professor Ajay Agrawal, the Creative Destruction Lab at the Rotman School of Management leverages leading faculty and industry networks, inventions, and talent from world-class, technology-oriented faculties at the University of Toronto as well as its location in Toronto, one of the world’s most culturally diverse cities and Canada’s largest financial centre. For real-time updates, please visit the Creative Destruction Lab on Twitter and Facebook and at www.creativedestructionlab.com.
The Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto is redesigning business education for the 21st century with a curriculum based on Integrative Thinking. Located in the world’s most diverse city, the Rotman School fosters a new way to think that enables the design of creative business solutions. For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca.
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