Fundica Announces the Winners of the 2018 Fundica Roadshow (Views: 3170)
June 25th, 2018 – Montreal, QC – On July 12th, Fundica, the leading funding identification and connection platform for Canadian businesses, announced the winners of the 2018 Fundica Roadshow and its equity investment award of up to $650,000.
Over the course of the finale, which took place at Bonsecours Market in Montreal, eleven finalists pitched their solutions to a panel of twenty-one funders, who judged them based on their market potential, solution, team, pitch, and investment readiness.
At the end of the day, InVivo AI (Daniel Cohen), FleetOps (Chris Atkinson), and Lumen5 (Michael Cheng) were named the winners of the Roadshow. Subject to due diligence, each startup will receive an approximate $200,000 share of the equity investment award powered by Panache Ventures (who committed to investing up to $500,000 in the winners) and BCF Ventures (who committed to investing up to $150,000) as well as free due diligence and listing on FrontFundr.
InVivo AI is using artificial intelligence to streamline the development of new drugs by predicting which compounds will have manageable safety profiles in clinical testing.
FleetOps operates an on-demand freight marketplace that uses artificial intelligence to match commercial truck drivers with shipment opportunities.
Lumen5 is a video creation platform powered by artificial intelligence that allows brands and businesses to produce engaging video content for marketing purposes at scale through intelligent automations.
“What I thought was really unique about the Fundica Roadshow is that it travels across the country,” said Michael Cheng, CEO and co-founder of Lumen5. “Having the opportunity to meet dozens of engaged investors and startups from across the country has been an amazing experience.”
"We are thrilled that Fundica brought us such driven and ambitious founders with impressive business ideas. We didn’t expect to have a three-way tie, which demonstrates the quality of this year’s cohort. We look forward to work closely with each one of these great startups," said Mike Cegelski, managing partner at Panache Venture.
“The Fundica Roadshow Finale was spectacular and gave us the opportunity to meet disruptive leaders that will shape tomorrow's economy. At BCF Ventures, we are thrilled to be part of this process and to have an investment option in these champions,” said Sergio A. Escobar, CEO of BCF Ventures.
“We’re very pleased to have had the opportunity to support another impressive group of Canadian companies this year,” said Fundica’s President, Mike Lee. “This was the biggest Roadshow yet, and we look forward to returning next year with even more startups, funders, and speakers.”
Though the Fundica Roadshow has concluded for the 2018 season, parties interested in learning more about Fundica can visit its website, www.fundica.com.
About Fundica:
Fundica, Canada's leading traditional funding identification and connection platform, matches entrepreneurs, private investors, public funders and advisors. Through our award-winning crowdsourcing/crawler technology, Fundica provides an up-to-date, comprehensive, and intuitive platform. Additionally, Fundica manages the Fundica Roadshow, an annual cross-Canada initiative.
About Panache Ventures
Panache Ventures is the most active Canadian seed stage venture capital fund. The firm is led by a team of experienced operators with a strong record of angel investments, years of institutional VC experience, and a solid network in Canada, Silicon Valley, and globally. The fund has a founders-first philosophy, a commitment to diversity, and a strategic seed/angel co-investment model.
About BCF Ventures
Led by Sergio A. Escobar, the BCF Ventures Super Angel Fund works alongside the other investors in the industry in order to multiply the fundraising capacity of the companies that are selected. By means of investments of a maximum of $50,000 per company, the actions initiated by BCF Ventures complement the strategies deployed based on grants and soft loans already offered by government programs operating in pre-seed and seed stages.
For more information:
Fundica:
Bronwyn Carere
Community Manager
(438) 869-6022
Panache Ventures:
Gabrielle Drouin
Community and Portfolio Manager
1 (514) 583 0697
gabrielle@panache.vc
BCF Ventures:
Ludovic Soucisse
Conseiller principal aux communications
Senior Communication Advisor
T. +1-514-397-2627 | C. +1-514-378-8425 | F. +1-514-397-8515
Ludovic.Soucisse@bcf.ca
