WATERLOO, ON, [October 16, 2019] - What do North, Bridgit and Plum have in common? On first thought, not a whole lot – except for the fact that they are startups from Waterloo Region. But in reality, each has graduated from the prestigious and globally-renowned Creative Destruction Lab (CDL). Today, two more local companies – Amina Health and EnPowered – are joining the ranks after being identified by CDL-Toronto’s judges as ones to watch.
The startup landscape today is crowded. Great ideas are scaling up into great companies every day. In Kitchener-Waterloo alone, there has been an explosion of startups, with thousands popping up in the last several years. Startups see programs like CDL as ways to break into larger networks. In this chaotic landscape, how does an industry leader like CDL pick winning startups to place their bets on? The process is incredibly thorough, with competition growing year after year.
CDL kicks this process off by sorting through hundreds of applications before moving on to conduct several rounds of interviews. After this, the organization has affiliated scientists assess the technology of each applicant while examining each of their holistic offerings, including revenue generated and market potential. The selected companies are ones that CDL and its team of experts deem as most likely to build massively scalable businesses.
“The energy and medical industries are monolithic. When you’re a startup in these industries, it’s simply not enough to understand the fundamentals of business and technology,” said Tomas van Stee, founder and President of EnPowered. “We are challenging well-established industries and our success very much depends on how we navigate our expansions,” James Maclean, CEO of Amina Health, agrees, saying “we’re looking to CDL to access industry experts and strategic advice that will help us establish the foundations to become scalable.”
Selecting only a few startups, the CDL is a mentorship program for science-based technology companies. Working in the energy and medical sectors respectively, EnPowered and Amina are shaking up old industries plagued by complicated regulations and dominated by monolithic companies.
The two startups will work with selected mentors for nine months to sharpen objectives in preparation for scaling. Both companies are looking forward to accessing experts in their fields and leveraging their guidance.
About EnPowered
We all know that electricity is cheap at night and expensive during the day, but it's actually not that simple. The true cost of power is very cheap almost always, but extremely expensive for short five-minute intervals. At EnPowered, we predict when these price spikes happen in advance, and help our customers to alter their usage when electricity is expensive to save up to 93 per cent on their energy costs.
About Amina Health
Amina Health is an exciting startup in the Kitchener-Waterloo area. We are making a device that measures your vitamin levels from a single drop of blood, combining home diagnostics with personalized nutrition. Whether vitamins are being taken for health or performance, getting the right nutrition is important.
About CDL
Creative Destruction Lab is a seed-stage program for massively scalable, science-based companies. Its nine-month program pairs founders with experienced entrepreneurs and investors to set focused, measurable objectives with the goal of maximizing equity-value creation. Founded in 2012 by Professor Ajay Agrawal at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, the program has now expanded with locations in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, Halifax and Oxford, U.K. Since its inception, companies that have participated in the CDL program have created more than CDN$4.34 billion in equity value. CDL alumni include North (Waterloo), Atomwise (San Francisco), Kyndi (Palo Alto), Xanadu (Toronto), BenchSci (Toronto), Kheiron Medical (London), and Roadbotics (Pittsburgh).
