RoboHub Partner Avidbots featured in UW article about startups created by Alumni

Many of the world’s leading innovation ecosystems share a common feature: a world-class research university at their core. The University of Waterloo has played a pivotal role in establishing the Waterloo region as a premier innovation ecosystem in Canada. 

You have probably heard of game-changing success stories like Blackberry, OpenText and Desire to Learn (D2L). But did you know that more than 562 Waterloo alumni have raised venture capital in the last decade? It’s why Pitchbook ranks Waterloo as the top Canadian school for entrepreneurs — where groundbreaking ideas become a reality. 

Waterloo region has become celebrated as Canada’s tech capital with some of the country’s fastest-growing companies planting their roots in the city. Here are five companies founded by Waterloo alumni — whose offices may even be in your neighbourhood — that are making waves locally and globally. 

Avidbots 

Waterloo alumni, Pablo Molina (BASc ’11) and Faizan Sheikh (BASc ’11), are revolutionizing the cleaning industry with Avidbots — the world’s smartest autonomous floor scrubbing robots. Their flagship product, NEO, is equipped with advanced mapping and navigation capabilities, allowing the robots to clean large areas autonomously. The company’s vision is to make robots more widespread in the cleaning industry, unlocking human potential and improving cleanliness standards locally and globally. 

In 2014, Avidbots joined Velocity as an early-stage startup to develop their product and maintained their relationship with the incubator over the years. Despite their global success, Molina and Sheikh decided to stay close to the University by keeping their headquarters in Kitchener to access the startup ecosystem, and the region’s research and engineering talent. 

Avidbots’ partnership with Waterloo RoboHub leverages the expertise of researchers and students to enhance the company’s robotics technology. Since 2018, the company has continued to hire co-op students and full-time employees, many of whom are Waterloo Engineering graduates. 

In 2020, Avidbots partnered with DHL to deploy NEO in commercial spaces such as airports, warehouses and shopping malls. Avidbots was recognized among Deloitte’s 2020 Technology Fast 50, and 2021 Technology Fast 500. In 2023, the Narwhal Project included Avidbots as part of the Narwhal List of Canadian technology companies that received more than $10 million of capital and are on their way to unicorn status. With customers in over a dozen countries across five continents, Avidbots has global offices in Chicago, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Colombia. 

For more details about the other featured companies, see the original article: https://uwaterloo.ca/news/made-waterloo.