Photo: TrustPoint Innovation Technologies, Ltd. President and CEO Sherry Shannon-Vanstone receives her trophy for graduating the Accelerator Program from Accelerator Centre CEO Tim Ellis.
Not all successful startups are staffed and run by 20-somethings, which was evident this morning as two “mature” companies graduated from the Accelerator Centre in Waterloo.
BlueRover and TrustPoint Innovations Technology Ltd. have built their companies from the ground up with the Accelerator Program, and are now ready to expand and take their place on the world stage. They are both emerging as successful graduates with ambitious plans for the future of technology, their companies, and the region.
BlueRover’s Infinite Intelligence technology allows businesses to monitor, track and react to real-time data using machine-to-machine (M2M) applications – at their fingertips, from virtually anywhere, with internet-based monitoring systems.
For example, BlueRover technology can track, trace and monitor food product temperatures in real time, which helps food and hospitality businesses to ensure they comply with industry standards. Improper food storage and temperature moderation can lead to major consequences, as was the case for the Cronut burger at the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) last September. The temperature of the burger’s maple bacon jelly was not monitored and led to numerous cases of food poisoning – which could have been prevented by BlueRover technology.
Loreto Saccucci, CEO of BlueRover, has big plans for the next 12 months. He plans on moving to a larger location to accommodate new hires, expanding into other countries and improving the company’s footprint in Canada and the United States.
No matter how large the company grows, it will always have a tie to Waterloo Region. Last year, BlueRover technology was on display at the Research Entrepreneurs Accelerating Prosperity (REAP), in conjunction with the Felt Lab, in St. Jacobs, Ontario. Its cutting-edge technology was introduced to undergraduate students by installing the BlueRover system into a moving vehicle to demonstrate its reliable asset monitoring in remote, mobile settings.
As a Wilfrid Laurier University graduate and engineering fellow at the University of Waterloo, Saccucci plans to remain in the region and help propel its success in the technology sector.
“It’s leading-edge in so many areas. We’re very committed to helping the region prosper, and as we prosper hopefully we can help the region prosper. I find that with other countries, take Silicon Valley for instance, Apple is very committed and Google is there. I’d like to think that we could do the same in Waterloo and Kitchener,” said Saccucci.
TrustPoint is making its mark in the automobile industry with M2M technology, by providing a Certificate Authority (CA) solution. This acts as a trusted authority for secure machine-to-machine communications, specializing in the creation, management and distribution of certificates that enable secure authentication of products and services. They work with NFC tags, vehicle-to-vehicle, and smart metering technology.
Sherry Shannon-Vanstone, TrustPoint President and CEO, is excited for the future of the company. The automobile industry envisions a collision-free vehicle by 2020, and TrustPoint technology is working towards making it a reality with their crash avoidance system. It is currently negotiating major contracts with big-name companies.
“We will be a major player in the vehicle-to-vehicle communication space, providing the security for that,” said Shannon-Vanstone.
“There are 250 main automobiles in North America that we look forward to having on our system. It’s huge. They’re big players,” she added.
Shannon-Vanstone also believes that building the company in Waterloo Region, where it has been able to hire local university graduates and thrive in the startup atmosphere, has been key to the success of the company.
“Most people in our space, in information security, understand the importance of being here in Waterloo. Also, the infrastructure with other companies – there are so many startups in new areas that we didn’t even know about 20 years go, or 10 years ago, or even five years ago,” she said.
“Because of many startups, it gives us so much opportunity and we’re known worldwide,” she added.
