A Startup’s Guide to Startupfest 2019
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Maximize your festival experience this year with a little planning. We’ve made it easy.
Having a plan, whether for your startup or in your life, is always a good idea. It’s what keeps you focused and maximizes efficiency with your precious time. With so much happening this year at Startupfest, it can be a little overwhelming attempting to plan how to take it all in. Relax, we’re here to help.
Our plan with this guide is to help you get the most out of your Startupfest 2019 experience. Think of it as a roadmap for the festival, helping you decide which events, speakers or prize opportunities are a must to include on your checklist.
First things first: The Premium Fests.
From the Founding and Funding workshops to ImpactFest and the WIT Boot Camp, there are 11 premium fests onsite this year. You must have a pass for the specific premium fest you’d like to attend in order to have access! If your ticket says “Startupfest”, you only have access as of Wednesday (July 10th) at noon. You can email info@startupfest.com if you’d like to add a Premium Fest to your pass.
The Onstage Content
With a total of 9 tracks, and over 100 speakers, it’s important you plan the sessions you want to attend. See our detailed agenda here sorted by day and stage, and use our add to calendar feature to plan your days.
The Prizes
$100k Investment Prizes (including the new Women in Tech Investment!)
Is your startup looking for some serious funding?
Besides the six figures, what also makes the $100k Prize so special is that it’s open to any startup at the event, and we’ve added an additional $100k investment solely for a female-led startup. This means no pre-registration required.
Just track down one of the designated investors/judges wearing a blue lanyard or find them in the $100k Prize(s) Tent (hint: you can also see the list of investors here). You have until end-of-day Thursday to pitch to them. Each investor will shortlist one startup for each prize. Make the cut, and you’ll be contacted that evening and invited to a private breakfast Friday morning where you’ll pitch to the entire group of investors, and have a chance at the big money! Details and FAQs can be found here!
Note: The $100k Women in Tech investment is for a female-led startup, which is qualified as: the most senior member of your executive team identifies as female. One female-led startup could end up taking home $200,000!
Grandmothers’ Choice Award
You might want to file this event under “can’t miss”. Open to any startup, it’s one of the festival’s most popular, and beloved, events. On Thursday from 12–5pm, and Friday afternoon from 12 to 3:30pm, you’ll find these startup savvy seniors in the Grandmother Judges Tent in the Tent Village. Simply put your name on the list and line up to pitch to the grannies. Be warned, their sweetness masks a BS radar finely honed from decades of experience.
This may be a non-cash prize, but it does come with the MaRS Market Intelligence Award which offers a unique opportunity for startups to gain access to world-class market research. Meet the Grandmother Judges here.
Innovative Media and Content Prize
Our partners at Videotron have teamed up with their counterparts at Quebecor, NumeriQ and MELS to award $50,000 in cash prizes and in-house partnerships to burgeoning content/media startups. Learn more here.
Elevate your ideas with National Bank
Give our partners at National Bank your best Elevator Pitch and you could win a prize worth up to $7,000, including a cash grant and free services from our partners Operiō, Lex Start, and Budgeto.
Gimlet Media Pitch
Come pitch your startup to Gimlet Media, for a chance to be featured on “The Pitch”, one of the top startup podcasts around the globe! Find them in the Tent Village.
The Flight is Right
Our partners at Air Canada are offering two round trip tickets to anywhere Air Canada flies. Visit their tent, explain your startup, and destination of choice!
Accelerator Zone
This is the place to learn about and connect with accelerator programs, such as Next Canada and DMZ. There’s a variety of prizes and opportunities in this zone:
Next36 Young Entrepreneur Award: Canada’s premier program for developing young entrepreneurs — will also be there. On Thursday, any senior post-secondary student or recent grad can pitch (in two minutes or less) to their alumni and mentor judges for the chance to win an exclusive founder spot in their 2019 Cohort.
NextAI Cohort: Pitch to NextAI alumni and mentor judges for your chance to win an exclusive spot in the 2020 Cohort of NextAI. You can sign up for a time slot here, OR show up at the Accelerator Zone onsite!
DMZ 2020 Cohort: The DMZ at Ryerson University team is onsite looking to add startups to one of their upcoming programs.
You can also find L-Spark, CDL and more looking to connect with startups in this space.
Networking + Mentorship
The Investor Zone powered by the DMZ
Startups and Investors will be pre-selected and matched based on industry, type of funding you’re looking for, etc. All startups must pre-apply and a limited number will be chosen to have an afternoon of meetings with leading VC’s and angels on Friday, July 13th onsite at Startupfest. APPLY HERE to reserve your spot! (APPLICATIONS CLOSE JULY 2).
Corporate Innovation Zone
Presented by Multiplicity, the Corporate Innovation Zone is new for 2019. Manulife and Franklin Templeton Investments are onsite looking to meet startups focused on development operations, cybersecurity and protection of customer data, and improving the customer acquisition and on-boarding experience. APPLY HERE to meet with them!
The Mentor Zone
Our partners at BDC are hosting the 2019 Mentor Zone. Home to some of our keynote speakers and industry leaders, the mentor zone is simply open office hours to connect. The schedule will be posted on July 8th, keep your eye out and plan accordingly!
Braindate
Networking opportunities are a big part of the Startupfest experience, and where the magic often happens. But connecting with the right people is something that’s often left to chance, and randomly going up to someone for the introduction isn’t for everyone. Braindates changes that.
Once again, we’ve harnessed the power of Montreal’s e180 and their Braindate platform to make meeting up one-on-one with the people you need to, easier than ever.
With your Startupfest registration, you’ll receive your Braindate invite. Create your profile by telling us a bit about yourself. You can then create offers to share knowledge with others, and book braindates with fellow participants based on interests or topics most pertinent to you. Braindating is fun, you’ll learn a ton, and walk away with new and potentially invaluable connections. Learn more here.
The Tent Village
The tents are filled with opportunities, so spend some time sifting through all of them. You’ll find products that could help your own business, lots of demos and programs available for startups. Beyond the prizes listed above, we’re hosting an Ecosystem Support tent showcasing service providers and government resources with a lot of free programs, bursaries, and more for your company. You can find the complete list of tents here. From our partners at Highline Beta, to Finance Montreal, and Bus.com, you can find a variety of prizes, opportunities, mentors, and even popsicles. All prizes and opportunities in this space can be found here, and you can find the complete tent village list here.
WakeupFest
Powered by our partners at Breathe Life, WakeupFest is an early morning yoga and dance party, Thursday, July 11th from 6:30–8:30am. Come prepared to align your chakras with a few sun salutations and vinyasa flows, or if yoga isn’t your thing, you can get your heart pumping while dancing to the beat of some local DJs. Learn more.
We’ve got a ton of other activities, from the HealthTech Workshop, to Ignite, our Off-Events, and so much more.
