Entrepreneur First (EF) is transforming Canada’s immense talent circle into prospective founders. As the competition mounts to overrun Silicon Valley for entrepreneurial leadership and innovation Canada’s Entrepreneur First is making a bold impression.
This company has moulded 25 venture powered companies setting them up with it investors, advisors and like minded cofounders through its 6 months program based in Toronto. Entrepreneur First has transformed the investment talent pool since it launched in Canada in 2020.
Connecting to like minded cofounders has always been the most crucial decision for emerging entrepreneurs. Choices made usually determine the success or failure of such companies on the long run. Entrepreneur First’s founders cohort are privileged to specifically choose the most suitable applicants as cofounders by analysing their ideas, skills, and overall potentials. They also test run these potential cofounders by stimulating relationships and testing their ideas in a regulated environment.
Entrepreneur First has established itself as the blueprint company for building start-ups from zero and discovering suitable cofounders. Since its launch, it has transformed companies with a combined $10 billion value while raising around $158 million series C round from too tech companies like LinkedIn (Reid Hoffman), and Stripe (Patrick and John Collison).
Entrepreneur First fishes for top talents from six international sites starting with Toronto which it considers the first in North America. The company spends time assessing and vetting these talents to sieve out the best for start-ups.
We have compiled a list of some Canadian Start-ups in Entrepreneur First’s portfolio to encourage prospects on why EF’s program may be the game changing decision for start-ups.
Vivid Machines
This is a start-up cofounded by Jenny Lemieux and Jonathan Binas which has digitized fruit production. Vivid Machines has transformed the fruit supply chain through its revolutionary spectral sensor and live computer vision. The platform manages and predicts the yield of fruit plants and analyses for diseases, pests and nutritional deficiencies thereby securing the quality and quantity of the fruit.
Lemieux chatted about the process; “With my background in agriculture and growing up on a farm, along with Jonathan’s experience at Mila building brain-inspired hardware to advance the state of the art in deep learning, we have this unique advantage to build a global company impacting all farmers.”
UpBeing
The cofounders Sam Daviau and Sean Kortschot launched UpBeing to improve human experience by measuring emotions through behavioural data. UpBeing helps users improve their mood and mental health as the platform automates measurement, understanding and improvement of habits. EF’s intimidating rank and file of developers and advisors including Adam Grant have given Daviau cause to celebrate his journey.
According to Daviau; “Not only did I find my co-founder, a world-class expert in applied psychology and machine learning at Entrepreneur First, but the program was a pivotal catalyst to UpBeing’s oversubscribed pre-seed round led by f7 Ventures from the Bay area by ex-Facebook execs”.
Glowstick
Glowstick emerged from cofounders Anwat Jeffrey and Masha Krol who got introduced during the EFs Toronto cohort. This is a platform for customer success insights. It projects growth opportunities, and retention risks using artificial intelligence. Glowstick has been dubbed the secret formula of customer success teams. Glowstick is revolutionary in that it performs its task faster than the manual CSMs.
Krol explains the journey so far with his cofounder. “We met during the inaugural Toronto cohort and, based on our shared values, have since attracted top AI talent and secured world-class investors including the notable Professor Yoshua Bengio.”
Metacommerce
Co-founders Ryan Watkins and Charles Ashby-Lepore connected over their mutual optimism about web3’s future and their common desire for the ownership economy. Metacommerce is an all-in-one app-based platform which provides a suite of powerful no-code tools for people to launch, and manage their own NFTs.
Watkins explained that the initial private beta was launched in October, and saw hundreds of creators enter the community seeking to design, create and sell NFTs, deploy efficient smart contracts, and track collectors without hiring a developer, using the Metacommerce platform.
According to Watkins. “Together, we’ve since been able to break through walls on our mission to help digital communities grow better.”
Sequestr
Sequestr is a carbon financing international marketplace set up by Rishabh Varshney, Tony Qu and Malcolm Cameron. This platform empowers farmers, landowners and project developers with working capital.
The end goal of Sequestr is to encourage corporate buyers to reduce and eventually completely remove emissions. Varshney set up Sequestr after selling his last business and desiring a new enterprise. According to Varshney; “I joined EF to find a co-founder who was an expert in technical logistics, and not only did I get that but the program also helped me grow my team.”
The application for the next cohort of Entrepreneur First will be available till Sunday, August 14. Prospective from Canada are encouraged to apply.
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