Two SFU emerging tech companies among New Ventures BC top 10
By Logan Kardash
From a field of over 200 competitors, two SFU alumni-led companies have emerged as finalists in the New Ventures BC Competition, the province’s largest and longest-running competition for emerging technology companies. Both Moment Energy and Streamline Athletes are SFU’s Coast Capital Savings Venture Connection incubator startups at the Charles Chang Institute for Entrepreneurship. The Top 10 finalists will vie for over $250,000 in cash and prizes at the NVBC 21st Annual Awards on October 4 2021.
Moment Energy -
Alumni of SFU’s Mechatronics Systems Engineering and co-founders of Moment Energy Edward Chiang, Sumreen Rattan, Gurmesh Sidhu, & Gabriel Soares are among the top 10.
Moment Energy offers energy storage systems (ESS) for ongrid and offgrid applications. In the past two years, Moment Energy has secured a supply chain of EV batteries from Nissan North America and three other major automakers. To date, the company has deployed three pilot projects and has $1.2 million in signed LOIs. The team members have been the recipients of 13 awards, recently placing first at Spring Activator’s 2021 National Impact Investor Challenge. The founding team is a graduate of the Chang Institute’s Technology Entrepreneurship@SFU program (a partnership between Mechatronics Engineering Systems and the Beedie School of Business), benefited from Chang institute eCoop terms and has been a participant of SFU’s Coast Capital Savings Venture Connection Incubator since 2019. The team has also received support from other local and national entrepreneurship programs including NEXT 36, Foresight and MaRS CleanTech Innovation Hub.
Moment Energy is currently focusing on building its manufacturing facility, to serve their pilot projects. Concurrently, they are expanding their engineering and business team with members that share the company’s passion for the universal right to clean and reliable energy.
Streamline Athletes -
Co-founders Brett Montrose (SFU Alumni, Faculty of Communications), Alexandre Pare (SFU Alumni, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences - French, Beedie School of Business), Keir Forster (SFU Alumni, Faculty of Health Science) and their 23-person team (including first employee Sophie Dodd, SFU Alumni, Beedie School of Business) were also recognized as top 10.
Streamline Athletes is a data-driven collegiate sports recruitment platform that supports both student-athletes in their journey from high school to college or university and the coaches recruiting new athletes for their rosters. Streamline’s unique revenue model via long-term B2B service agreements with universities helps avoid exploitation of athletes.
The recruitment platform saves both student athletes and coaches time and money. With Streamline Athletes, student-athletes filter schools based on their priorities, and can contact coaches with verified academic/athletic information, eliminating hours of research and high costs of recruitment agencies. Coaches, save up to 80% of the time they spend on recruiting. They set their recruitment standards, target athletes based on their criteria, and automate their outreach, saving them up to $75,000 a year and increasing conversions on signing.
Streamline has been a participant of SFU’s Coast Capital Savings Venture Connection Incubator since 2018, has benefited from Chang Institute's eCoop Program and is a part of the 11.0 cohort at Discovery Park’s Generator.
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From all of us at the Charles Chang Institute for Entrepreneurship & Coast Capital Savings Venture Connection and everyone at the Beedie School of Business we wish you continued success in your ventures and the best of luck as you enter the fourth and final round of the competition.
Read full annoucement for NVBC Competition Top 10.