On August 14th, a jury of Medtech experts and Entrepreneurs-in-Residence were privileged to have almost 20 hopeful Medtech start-ups pitch their business dreams and visions in order to qualify for the upcoming Medtech Accelerator cohort taking place this Fall at Centech.
Centech Summer Cohort 2019
Centech’s Accelerator program is an intense 12-week program of workshops, mentoring and guest speakers, with prospective candidates aiming to proceed to the Propulsion phase, which I mentioned in the previous blog post. Propulsion is a two-year process of mentoring, coaching, team-building and financing in assigned office and lab space within Centech.
I’m very pleased to say that a record 14 start-up hopefuls were successful in their Accelerator pitches. They came from a variety of sources, including McGill’s Faculty of Medicine and the school’s X-1 business accelerator, the Université de Montreal, Concordia’s District 3, and other sources outside of Quebec – including Stanford University in the U.S.
It is a truly diverse and international group of young entrepreneurs. In addition to several traditional medical device technologies, there were a number of Healthcare AI initiatives as well as those in digital health.
Eventually, the new Propulsion entrants will work alongside the 10 existing Propulsion teams in the program. Five of these were mentioned in the previous blog, and the others include NeuroServo, AIFred, PuzzleMed, Shaddari, and Invicare.
As Centech’s Medtech Entrepreneur-in-Residence since 2017, I have found it extremely encouraging and exciting to see our Ecosystem flourish in such a brief timeframe - a clear signal of the passion, commitment and potential that the world of Medtech innovation has in store here in Montreal, in Quebec and across Canada.
Supporting this growing number of sustainable Medtech start-ups is a growing world-class Medtech advisory board of accomplished business, regulatory, legal and financing experts. This group will be the subject of a blog to follow shortly.
Embracing world-class teamwork that involves passionate entrepreneurs, seasoned mentors and legal experts, Centech is thriving in its vision and creating a formula for world class success in the exciting world of innovation. I feel fortunate to be able to take part.