Two companies founded by University of Waterloo alumni are the first recipients of Ontario's new Life Sciences Scale-Up Fund (LSSUF). Intellijoint Surgical Inc. and Vena Medical, a Velocity Health company, will receive a combined $1.9 million to increase manufacturing capacity, expand globally and advance commercialization of their health-care technologies.
Vena is part of the Velocity Health stream, which supports early-stage startups in validating and commercializing medical and health-related technologies. While not a Velocity company, Intellijoint collaborates regularly with Velocity and the wider Waterloo innovation ecosystem.
"As one of Canada's strongest health-technology commercialization platforms, it is great to see our Velocity founders making great strides towards improving health-care delivery," says Moazam Khan, managing director of Venture Scale and Strategy at Velocity. "This sort of investment makes a big difference in supporting growing health-tech companies accelerate their path to market."
The $24 million LSSUF is part of the Government of Ontario's larger investment to strengthen the province's biomanufacturing sector, accelerate innovation and attract further investment in life sciences.
"Ontario has a long and proud history of advancing the research and development of cutting-edge breakthroughs and life-saving technologies that have had a significant impact on patient care both domestically and internationally," said Vic Fedeli, Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade. "Through the Life Sciences Scale-Up Fund, our government is making sure Ontario-based entrepreneurs are equipped with the tools they need to grow their operations, scale globally and remain competitive in the age of innovation."
Both Vena Medical and Intellijoint Surgical were founded by Waterloo Engineering graduates and grew out of their fourth-year Capstone Design projects with financial and advisory support from the University specifically designed to foster students' entrepreneurial ambitions.
Intellijoint Surgical, a leading provider of orthopaedic medical technologies, has supported more than 80,000 hip and knee replacements globally. The company, co-founded by alumni Armen Bakirtzian (BASc '08), Andre Hladio (BASc '08, MASc '10) and Richard Fanson (BASc '08), is receiving $450,000 to integrate artificial intelligence and automation into its production and distribution workflows. This investment supports 34 existing positions and creates three new high-skilled roles.
Vena Medical develops intravascular imaging technologies used by physicians during stroke interventions and real-time diagnostics. The company has received $1.5 million from the LSSUF to establish its new Manufacturing Centre of Excellence in Kitchener. The funding supports nine existing jobs and creates 13 new high-skilled positions.
"Our team has engineered a highly complex, microscopic medical device, and now we have the state-of-the-art cleanroom and manufacturing infrastructure to build it at scale," says Phillip Cooper (BASc '17), co-founder & COO of Vena Medical. "With the backing of the LSSUF, we are scaling our manufacturing right here in Kitchener. We are ready to take this Kitchener-Waterloo-born innovation to the rest of the world."
This week, Vena announced that it has received regulatory clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the use of its Vena MicroAngioscope System in the peripheral vasculature.
Velocity is Waterloo's flagship incubator and offers mentorship, funding and Canada's largest tech-corridor network to help creators move ideas from the lab to the marketplace. Since 2008, Velocity has helped launch more than 500 startups that together exceed $40 billion in enterprise value.
