istarthub Accelerators Program

The Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) program is a Canadian Government initiative that is designed to support and scale R&D in Canadian companies. SR&ED tax credits are given to organizations that are investing in R&D. Such tax credits translate into actual cash refunds for many Canadian companies, which allow offsetting R&D expenses.

Startups can leverage SR&ED as an asset to obtain bridge or growth funding. The resultant cashflow is critical and can be deployed for acceleration functions such as sales channel development, adding new team members and marketing.

The istarthub R&D Capital acceleration program - powered by CBA, offers a unique ecosystem to participating startups such as Access to Growth Capital, Support on Sales Channel Development and Access to Mentors throughout the 12 month duration of the program. The program will be offered to high potential startups that R&D Capital will decide to invest in through a Short Term Debt instrument based on SR&ED receivables and istarthub would plug-in the various acceleration modules. Other Investment Partners associated with the program may decide to participate as investors as well. The participating startups would thus be a part of a holistic ecosystem that is focused on building the business valuation allowing the Founders to stay focused on key execution aspects.

What do startups get out of the program?

Access to Growth Capital

R&D Capital may invest through a Short Term Debt instrument based on SR&ED receivables on program initiation. Other Investment Partners such as Accredited Angel Investors, Institutional Investors, Corporate Venture Arms maybe introduced during the program tenure to consider their participation

Access to Clients & Sales Channels

Introductions to potential Channels & Corporate Ecosystems internationally.

Valuation Building

Preparing and staging the company for attractive multiples for investors.

Access to Pedigreed Mentors

Introductions to pedigreed Business Function Experts on Product Development, Market Validation, Revenue Growth, Market Access & Subject Matter Experts internationally.

Sounding Board

Personalized guidance to help Founders maintain momentum.

Ongoing Acceleration

A minimum commitment of 12 months support.

Eligibility

Your startup must be involved in engineering, design, data collection, testing or other developmental work.
Ideally, your startup must have designed or in the process of developing new software.
If your startup offers solutions to the manufacturing industry, the solution should reduce costs or to improve manufacturing.
Your startup has created or is in the midst of creating a new product, made improvements or added new features to an existing product or built a prototype.

Your startup may have incurred costs related to a process, project or prototype that is incomplete because of unresolved technical problems.
For-profit, incorporated for no more than five years as of the application submission date, with a valid business registration number.
The angel/VC investment in the company is less than $3M.
Ownership of rights to commercialize the Intellectual Property. (e.g. patents, copyrights, trade secrets, etc.)

Pitch Schedule

Pitch I:

Thursday, 30 January 2020 at
R&D Capital's downtown Toronto office
(First Canadian Place, 100 King Street West, Suite 5700, Toronto,ON M5X 1C7)

Pitch II:

Thursday, 27 February 2020 at
R&D Capital's downtown Toronto office
(First Canadian Place, 100 King Street West, Suite 5700, Toronto,ON M5X 1C7)

Pitch III:

Thursday, 26 March 2020 at
R&D Capital's downtown Toronto office
(First Canadian Place, 100 King Street West, Suite 5700, Toronto,ON M5X 1C7)

Management

Mentors