Techstars Toronto First Cohort Spans Five Countries and Six Industries

February 2, 2018

Techstars Toronto has unveiled what their first cohort will look like, and the chosen companies span several different industries.

There were over 650 applications from 50 different countries all vying to be a part of Techstars Toronto, but in the end, only 10 made the cut to be a part of an intensive three-month program held in Toronto at the WeWork building. The class is among the biggest in Techstars’ storied history, as 70 total employees across the 10 companies are taking part in the program. Techstars Toronto is led by Sunil Sharma, a former partner at Extreme Startups.

The companies selected to take part are:

Cinchy, a single secure platform that eliminates the need for application-specific databases.
Distributed ID (DIID), a private digital identity network that empowers business and fraud
management processes.
Elmy, an online marketplace to discover and book appointments with local beauty professionals.
Flipd, a company that addresses phone addiction for the next generation by gamifying attention away from distractions.
Flow.ai, providers of a state of the art platform to create chatbots, voice assistants, customer service or
conversational commerce solutions.
KitchenMate, a company that automates the cooking of meal-kits to deliver convenience without compromises for
busy professionals in the workplace.
LumiereVR, a startup devoted to providing the best cinematic VR experience.
SENSO.AI, the predictive customer acquisition and retention platform for the mortgage industry.
Tread.io, a software platform for securing, managing and financing construction equipment services
such as manned dump trucks, cranes and excavators.
WISK, the most advanced beverage analytics platform on the market for restaurants, bars and
hotels.

Founders of these companies come from a total of five countries—Canada, the U.S., Ukraine, Netherlands, and China. They also represent a diverse set of industries, from AI and VR to fintech and SaaS.

The companies are currently in week two of the 13-week program and have each received a total of $120,000 USD in funding. That funding comes from Real Ventures and Techstars Ventures, and in total, they have doled out $1.2 million to all ten companies.

Real Ventures first visited and met with Techstars executives in 2009 and formed a partnership in Toronto back in March 2017. Back then, Techstars co-founder and Canada-native David Brown cited Real Ventures work with the Montreal-based FounderFuel Accelerator as a major reason to partner up.

The funding is broken down into a $100,000 convertible note, and $20,000 for a six per cent stake in the company. In total, Techstars graduates around the world have accumulated close to $4.5 billion in funding and 90 per cent of those graduates were either acquired or still in business.

The next Techstars program will be a partnership with Colliers and focus on property technology. Applications for that cohort open up on February 19.