2021 C100 Fellows Cohort

C100’s Fellowship program highlights Canada’s most promising early-stage entrepreneurs. The 2021 cohort features four University of Waterloo connections. From Velocity alumni to chief technology officers, many of these individuals are the face of Canada's future entrepreneurial sector. The University of Waterloo fosters an entrepreneurial atmosphere, providing many incubation and acceleration programs, connection, support systems and much more.

Raymond Nguyen (MMath ’12)
Company: CTO co-founder, Arternal CRM
Education: MMath, Computer Science (2012)

Raymond Nguyen (MMath ’12) is the chief technology officer (CTO) and co-founder of Arternal CRM, an all-in-one consolidated art system that focuses on bringing Client Relationship Management (CRM) to the art world. It does this by streamlining communications across all members of the gallery, allowing them to save work simultaneously within one platform. The goal of the Arternal team is to limit the number of formats and platforms artists have to use and instead provide everything in one place. During his time at Waterloo, Nguyen was the former president of the Computer Science Graduate Student Association from 2011 to 2012.

Kuljeev Singh (BMath ’09)
Company: CEO and Founder, ResQ
Education: BMath Mathematical Sciences (2009)

Kuljeev Singh (BMath ’09) founder and CEO of ResQ located in Toronto. ResQ enables restaurant operators and service providers to build better-managed businesses by offering a central spot for brands to manage and control all their repair and maintenance operations. This allows restaurants to focus on their guest experience. Today, ResQ is a venture-backed company working with 600+ restaurants across 70 per cent of the fastest-growing restaurant brands in Canada. Using his degree from the University of Waterloo, Singh has a huge presence in the investment world, currently working as an investment advisor with various companies and previously working with QuandI and Augur INC. This is not all for Singh’s growing success — he has also opened his own restaurant at the age of 28, Kanga Pies located in Toronto, which is the first Australian-meat pie shop in the region.

Paul Klicnik (BCS ’08)
Company: Co-Founder & Head of Engineering, Relay Financial
Education: B.CS Computer Science/Software Engineering Opt (2008)

Paul Klicnik (BCS ’08) is the co-founder and head of engineering at Relay Financial located in Toronto. Relay Financial is a privately held digital banking company dedicated to automate financial management for small businesses. Paul Klicnik and Yoseph West (alumnus from the University of Durham in England) founded this company in October 2018 and have been able to raise $4.4 million in funding. 

Mike Kirkup (BMath ’01, MMSc ’07)
Company: CTO (Chief Technology Officer), EnPowered
Education: BMath, Computer Science/Software Engineering and M.MSc Management Science (2007), former Velocity Director

A huge supporter of Waterloo region startups, Waterloo alumni and former director of Velocity, Mike Kirkup (BMath ’01, MMSc ’07) is the CTO at EnPowered. Kirkup has had a huge presence with Velocity here at the University of Waterloo, being a former director, a judge in the finals and now working at an alumni startup. Kirkup says that: “I had several opportunities to leave the region. I wanted to see what I could do to make Waterloo an amazing place. Joining Velocity seemed like a great way to make an impact, although I never would have guessed the kind of success that we would achieve with the program.” As an alumnus of Velocity, the incubator helped EnPowered grow in its early stages. Today, EnPowered helps industrial businesses control their energy costs by forecasting the energy markets and managing participation in Ontario’s Industrial Conservation Initiative (ICI).