Velocity Up Start Program Application
$15,000 Funding & Advisory Support For Your Spin Out!
*Applications for the Winter 2025 are due Thursday January 9th 11:59 PM Eastern. *
Up Start is designed for Waterloo students and recent graduates who want to turn their work into commercial ventures. Whether you’re working on a graduate degree or a capstone project, we aim to accelerate your success and help you make an impact on the world.
Turning technology into a product is challenging, which is why Velocity and the Waterloo Commercialization Office (WatCo) are combining expertise in startups and technology transfer to accelerate your ambitions.
We are looking for research projects that have commercial potential and researchers with an interest in bringing those ideas to market, as well as students or alumni actively working on businesses with high commercial potential. This includes graduate researchers, capstone teams with the intention to commercialize their work, or active student/alumni founders pursuing a business.
Award amount:
The award amount will be a maximum of $15,000 dependent on the completion of Velocity and WatCo programming. This funding is a grant - neither Velocity nor WatCo takes any equity or ownership of any kind for joining this program.
Programming:
Velocity and WatCo will provide advisory support and training for all selected projects. To obtain funding, all project teams must complete the Velocity Cornerstone program (begins January 16th and runs for 2 weeks) as well as subsequent milestone achievement as designated by Velocity/WatCo advisors.
Please go to Cornerstone | Velocity for more details on Cornerstone.
To qualify you must meet the criteria below:
- Be a current student (undergraduate, graduate, or post-doc) or alum who graduated less than a year ago from the University of Waterloo
- Obtain an acknowledgement of support from your supervising professor (if applicable)
- Are prepared to commit 25 hours of time over a single term to in-person/online working sessions plus independent work necessary to develop ideas to meet business milestones