A company that makes mobile games and another that connects avid cooks are among the 35 startups at the University of Waterloo's Velocity Garage workspace.
A company that makes mobile games that teach kids programming skills and another that connects avid cooks are among the 35 startups at the University of Waterloo's Velocity Garage workspace in downtown Kitchener this term.
The new startups target a broad range of markets in both the business and consumer space, from online shoppers and retailers, to bloggers, marketers and researchers. Several more hardware-based startups are queued up to move into the Velocity Foundry workspace when the new location is ready.
“Demand for Velocity workspace continues to grow each year and we’re doing what we can to accommodate all of the great innovations and young entrepreneurs coming from the University of Waterloo,” said Mike Kirkup, Velocity director. “We’re off to an amazing start this year, with a record 35 startups headquartered at Velocity Garage this term.”
The new companies for the Winter 2014 term include:
Homefed is an online food network that matches hosts and guests to share home-cooked meals. Guests can discover, order and pay for meals online, share their experiences, and connect with others over the love of home-cooked food. They are currently promoting networks in Vancouver, Kitchener, Waterloo, Guelph, Cambridge, and the Greater Toronto Area. To be part of the upcoming mobile app launch for iOS and Android, visit www.homefed.co.
Founders are Steven Wang, Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) 2013, University of Waterloo, James Mclean, Industrial Design 2003, OCADU, and Vishnu Varadaraj, MBET 2011, University of Waterloo.
LightBot makes mobile games that teach kids from Kindergarten to Grade 10 real-world programming concepts such as sequencing instructions, writing procedures, and creating loops and conditionals. Their first game is available for iOS and Android at light-bot.com. LightBot won a grant worth $25,000 at the Velocity Fund Finals last November.
Founder Danny Yaroslavski is a fourth-year honours computer science student, software engineering Option, University of Waterloo.
MetricWire provides researchers with a platform for collecting high-frequency data from study participants and their environments via smartphones. Data can be streamed from multiple sources including GPS, camera and microphone, as well as external devices. To sign up for the open beta, visit www.metricwire.com. MetricWire won a grant worth $25,000 at the Velocity Fund Finals last November.
Founders are Brian Stewart, Master of Arts 2013, economics specializing in econometrics; George Wang, Bachelor of Applied Science 2012 in mechatronics; Charles Desouza, third-year systems design engineering, all from the University of Waterloo.
PiinPoint is an online predictive analytics tool that quickly recommends the best locations for new stores based on demographic, traffic, commercial real estate, and municipal data. Visit www.piinpoint.com. PiinPoint won a grant worth $25,000 at the Velocity Fund Finals last November.
Founders Jim Robeson, MBET 2013 and Adam Saunders, Bachelor of Environmental Studies, geomatics, are Waterloo alumni.
Sesame IO is a free online platform that lets Kindergarten to Grade 12 teachers connect all of the everyday notable moments to make each student's learning process visible. Teachers can collaboratively plan lessons on a calendar, capture student progress through photos, videos and audio recordings via the Sesame Snap app on their mobile devices, and record evaluations such as rubrics and checklists. Every student has a personalized learning portfolio filled with real evidence and feedback across all subject areas and grade levels that can be shared with other teachers and parents. To learn more about how Sesame IO can help make student learning visible, visit sesameio.com.
Founder is Ian Tao, Mechatronics Engineering 2013, University of Waterloo.
uMentioned is a college-based messaging app for students to share and chat about anonymous stories with their friends and peers based on the events unfolding in their lives. Available today for iOS and Android. Visit www.umentioned.com. uMentioned won a grant worth $25,000 at the Velocity Fund Finals last November. Visit www.uwmentioned.com.
Founders are Ade Labinjo, Economics 2013, Queen's University and Henry Shi, a fourth-year Computer Science and Economics student from the University of Waterloo.
Velatron Labs is developing a personalized platform to help shoppers order the right-sized clothing online. Shoppers use a mobile app to take front and side profile pictures of themselves. The pictures remain only on the shopper's phone. The platform creates a unique FitMap and an associated code for the shopper to enter at participating online retailers. The FitMap shows how the clothing fits the person's body profile on the online shopping site. Visit www.velatronlabs.com.
Founders Piyush Kumar, Rohit Verma and Pratik Patel, Mechanical Engineering 2013, are Waterloo alumni.
Wriber is an online writing coach for bloggers, marketers and publishers to keep ideas and content flowing. Wriber helps brainstorm topics to write about, suggests ways to expand on content as it is being written, and recommends wording tweaks to make content more discoverable by search engines while maintaining the integrity of the content. Beta is coming soon. Visit wriber.com.
Founder is John Zupancic, Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) 2012.
Winners of the Velocity Fund Finals are guaranteed space at Velocity Garage. Others qualify for the program through an application process. Applications are available at http://velocity.uwaterloo.ca/garage/apply-for-the-garage/. The current list of companies at Velocity Garage is available at velocity.uwaterloo.ca.
About the University of Waterloo
In just half a century, the University of Waterloo, located at the heart of Canada's technology hub, has become one of Canada's leading comprehensive universities with 35,000 full- and part-time students in undergraduate and graduate programs. Waterloo, as home to the world's largest post-secondary co-operative education program, embraces its connections to the world and encourages enterprising partnerships in learning, research and discovery. In the next decade, the university is committed to building a better future for Canada and the world by championing innovation and collaboration to create solutions relevant to the needs of today and tomorrow. For more information about Waterloo, visit uwaterloo.ca.
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