Five startups have been awarded $10,000 Velocity Momentum Grants to help them take the next step in their entrepreneurial journey. The no-strings attached funding is intended to allow founders to focus on their business full-time after graduation.
Velocity is the University of Waterloo's centre of entrepreneurship and offers mentorship, funding and Canada's largest tech-corridor network to help founders move ideas from the lab to market. Since 2008, Velocity has helped launch more than 500 startups that together exceed $40 billion in enterprise value.
"Switching from a student to a startup founder is very challenging at the best of times", says John Dick, senior director at Velocity. "Momentum Grants take a bit of the financial burden off our new graduates so they can remain focused on achieving the milestones that will get their businesses off the ground."
The companies receiving the funding offer solutions in health technology, artificial intelligence (AI) and safety monitoring.
The University of Waterloo is ranked number one for producing the most successful entrepreneurs and founders. In fact, many of Canada's top innovations have their roots at Waterloo.
"Velocity is proud to be the cornerstone of Waterloo's entrepreneurial ecosystem," Dick says. "The world is facing challenging times, and we are here to support the builders creating solutions that will make a real difference in people's lives."
This year's Momentum Grant recipients include Movarion, Foratus, Woodpeckr, Mandel Diagnostics and CogniHealth Inc.
"The Momentum Grant allows us to prove the demand we're seeing from customers by bringing our MVP to market now, rather than spending months raising investor dollars first," says Connor Kapahi, founder of Mandel Diagnostics. "Without Velocity's support, from coaching to connections with investors and clinicians, we couldn't have moved this quickly. Hardware startups are particularly challenging and this grant lets us get our device in clinicians' hands today so we can attract more customers and investment tomorrow."
Meet the Momentum Grant recipients
CogniCheck supports brain health and health monitoring using mobile devices and an AI infrastructure. The startup is founded by Yuvraj Walia (BASc '25) and Omar Atwa (BASc '25).
Mandel Diagnostics, founder Connor Kapahi (PhD in progress), develops automated screening devices that detect age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of vision loss, enabling eye doctors to apply new therapies instead of referring patients to surgeons.
Foratus is a research collective focused on building tools that make understanding and processing information, easier, more insightful and easily accessible to everyone. Foratus is founded by Hadi Alsibassi and Hassan Ismail (BMath '25).
Movarion develops a range of power assisted carts, and dollies that leverage innovative electrification and computing technology to deliver products that make a positive impact in the workforce. The founders Jeff Graansma and Mike Duthie are both Waterloo staff in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering.
Woodpeckr, founded by Brandon Ko (BASc '25) and Tyler West (BASc '25), is an all-purpose drone monitoring service that combines drone operations for security, safety monitoring and operational insights in a variety of applications including construction.
Past recipients include Swish Solar, PatientCompanion, NewGen Health, Mapkot Technologies, GrownStone, Doro, GreaseTech and CELLECT Laboratories.
Velocity entrepreneurship programs benefit from the longtime support of entrepreneur and angel investor Mike Stork, and continue to grow thanks to his vision and the contributions of donors.
