The entrepreneurship ecosystem at Waterloo Engineering nurtures promising ideas into thriving enterprises. In our weekly Founder Fuel series, we look at new ventures and how they have benefited from that crucial early support.
Youssef Helwa (BASc ’15, nanotechnology engineering, MASc ’17, electrical and computer engineering) co-founded NERv (scheduled to be renamed FluidAI) in 2014 with Amr Abdelgawad (BASc ’16, nanotechnology engineering, MBET ’17). Their smart monitoring system detects bleeding, leaks and infections after abdominal surgery so doctors can treat complications sooner.
The innovation earned them a place in Velocity, funding from the Engineer of the Future Fund and international attention as the 2019 winners of the Entrepreneurship World Cup.
That early support was critical to pay for research and development materials and refine the technology enough to attract private capital.
Advice from professors, the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology and other up-and-coming companies in the Waterloo ecosystem was also invaluable. Startups like Intellijoint Surgical — another Waterloo Engineering medical technology success story — helped fuel their ambitions.
Today, the Kitchener company has raised about $65 million, employs more than two dozen people and, most significantly, recently received approval for its technology from Health Canada.
Go to Delivering life-saving data to doctors for the full story.