This past week, Montreal hosted the 7th Startup Festival, in the heart of Montreal’s Old Port - on the esplanade in front of the Science Centre, between Rue de la Commune and the Promenade du Vieux-Port, and between the Quai Jacques-Cartier and the Quai King Edward.
Montreal, which is the largest city in Canada's Québec province is set on an island in the Saint Lawrence River and named after Mt. Royal. On arrival, you will promptly understand why it was aptly referred to as the cultural capital of Canada.
The city has an unbeatable festival vibe, this year most especially, as the city celebrates its 375th year of birth!
Therefore, while the city is thawing into nice summer weather, it has become a vibrant, diverse, cultural hub so as to be North America’s number one host city for international events.
With the mix of the European charm, unparalleled nightlife, arts, culture, and world class restaurants - Montreal made for the perfect stomping grounds for the 2017 Startup Festival indeed.
StartupFest is an annual event dedicated to the growth of startups, to inspire the global startup community through the unforgettable and unconventional.
On a general note, StartupFest steadily grew into a global gathering of the world's best entrepreneurs, founders, investors, and mentors. It features world-class startup idea case studies, ranging from back-of-napkin ideas to champagne-popping exits, across three days of keynote, interactive sessions.
Over the previous six years of its existence, StartupFest has been held in various unique locations throughout the Old Port of Montreal, and this year the event built on its antecedents.
The entirely outdoor venue was surrounded by cobblestone roads, bubbly participants, and an unbeatable view of the St.Lawrence river.
During the event, every aspect of content was hand-picked and carefully crafted; ranging from inspiring lessons from seasoned entrepreneurs, to informative how-to sessions, and interactive panels.
There were also offers of tangible investment opportunities and prizes, from top accelerators, looking to fill their next cohorts, to world-renowned VC.
On the individual note, whether you’re looking for exposure, to acquire new talent, connect with investors, corporates, or different sectors of the industry - you would find it in StartupFest 2017 tent village, where people were gathered, from July 12 to 15, under relevant themes.
An attendee, Guy Rosen, who is now working with Facebook said, “I was here 3 years ago, and pitched Onavo, my company, and we picked up one of the top prizes and 3 years later we get picked up by Facebook. It’s awesome.”
Indeed, part of the event this year as well, was the annual best onstage pitch competition. The pitches were diverse, covering a range of sectors, including tech, retail, food & drink, finance, creative industries, and energy, the festival really unpacked a whole range of entrepreneurial creations, from businesses to community-building projects.
Innovators, business owners and startup minds attended the event to share why and how they started, and what they learnt from it. Not merely a small handful was worthy of celebration, as they showcased social enterprises at this edition of Montreal StartupFest pitching competition.
From hundreds of applications however, the organizers selected the seven most promising startups to battle it out on stage.
Here goes a roll call of the participating innovators, and their amazing presentations:
1. Tunedly, the first to be showcased, was represented by Chris Erhardt. The startup claims to be an online recording studio, connecting music creators such as songwriters and producers with qualified session musicians online.
During the presentation Chris explained how he and his team came up with the idea of Tunedly due to the daily struggles he experienced as a songwriter ten years ago. The startup launched a prototype in January 2016 and garnered impressive customer and media traction since.
2. Next up was Ferst Digital, represented by Eytan Bensoussan and the only native startup from Montreal among the bunch. Ferst Digital aims to make banking and bookkeeping simpler and more cost effective for businesses.
The company hasn't launched their product yet, but they are accepting Beta user signups.
3. The third company on stage was CareFind represented by Kathy Bui and Erica Hughes. The company, founded by a group of University of Calgary students is building a platform to connect busy parents to real time child care vacancies. Erica hopes to launch the first version of CareFind by January 2018.
The judges left her with the advice to move faster and launch a product as soon as possible.
4. The next startup pitching was Party On Demand represented Willie G. The startup from Los Angeles claims to be an on demand party organizer, capable of organizing a party within an hour, including food and entertainers such as chefs or Djs.
The very entertaining pitch by Willie G, who claims to be “Americas finest entertainer” on his social accounts, told us the story of how his father died from HIV and Cancer but left his son with the advice to celebrate life more often.
5. Next up was Quanovate represented by Zheng Yang. The company, probably the best funded company in the competition, currently employs a staff of 25 employees at the San Francisco based lab. Quanovate is developing an IOT health testing platform, focusing on fertility and pregnancy. The product has been FDA cleared and is going on sale at the end of this year.
The startup is planning to generate revenue through product sale and telemedicine.
6. The sixth pitch was by The Hive represented by Adolf Akuffo-Afful. The startup from Rochester, NY is tackling the food storage problem on campuses and other venues with limited food storage space. Users will be able to rent individual hives of the product and access their stored items through an ID authentication process.
The judges noted that potential target customers such as universities and students are generally short on funds, however Adolf claims that their solution will actually save money.
The product is still in development.
7. Last of the batch was Vimix.tv, represented by Ritam. Vimix is a new way for brands to promote user generated content. With Vimix, brands can easily share their video content on social media through one click and embed video grids, carousels and playlists on their own website. The tool also features a collaborative video cloud storage.
The winner of the best onstage pitch went to Willie G of Party On Demand. Willie G is a natural entertainer and sales person which really shows on stage. While his startup clearly has less traction and probably less potential from a scalability standpoint than some of the other competitors, most notably Tunedly and Quanovate, the delivery of Willie's pitch was outstanding and the competition was branded The Best Onstage Pitch, which he certainly delivered.
Congratulations all round, to all the deserving finalists and winners. I personally hope they go on to achieve successes due in these ventures.
You can also enjoy clips of some of the event highlights here, and share comments about your opinions.
