The Rockies' Report - Issue 6 (November 2023)

NOVEMBER 2023 ISSUE 6

THE ROCKIES' REPORT

A Note From Heather Marshall Welcome to The Rockies' Report, a newsletter that showcases the CDL-Rockies community, its work and its impact.

Having recently kicked off our seventh cohort year, I am reminded of what makes CDL-Rockies what it is: our community. The active participation of our community – partners, mentors, alumni and more – enables the work we do at CDL-Rockies.

We are continually learning and working to increase our impact. This means partnering with industry leaders to understand critical challenges facing industry, diversifying the expertise and perspectives in our mentor group and refining our stream theses to reflect emerging disruptive technologies.

With the support and feedback from our community over the years, we’ve identified patterns within our ecosystem that point to two “gaps” that CDL-Rockies is well-positioned to fill. Much like the CDL program, these “gaps” are unique to deep science and technology founders. There is a lack of support within the ecosystem both for very early-stage companies (pre-CDL) and those companies looking to scale and needing to build leadership and managerial capacity. The CDL-Rockies’ Nurture Program and Haskayne ScaleUp Program aim to fill those “gaps” by supporting founders throughout their entrepreneurial journey.

In addition to highlighting our program offerings, milestones and metrics, we recognize the importance of sharing the stories of the people behind those numbers. Whether it’s our corporate partners working with alumni companies, MBA students starting their own ventures, or CDL-Rockies’ team members expanding relationships within the innovation ecosystem, every community member has their own CDL story.

As a member of this community, I invite you to share your CDL story with friends, colleagues and your online network. To get you started, we’ve created these prompts to share on LinkedIn. Thank you, once again, for your continued support of our programs as we work with ventures building massive, scalable solutions across industries.

Sincerely,

A Note From Heather Marshall | Impact | Around The Corner | Mentor Spotlight | Venture View

MENTOR SPOTLIGHT Recognizing Excellence in Our CDL Community

LORI ELL CAREER HIGHLIGHTS:

TITLE: Founder & President, Growing Ideas

1. As President and part owner of food processor Agristar, I was brought in to lead through a court-appointed restructuring. Within two years, we transformed the company into a profitable organization and led it to a successful sale in nine years.

2. In March 2021, as an executive coach with TEC Canada, I was recognized with the organization’s highest Chair recognition, the Robert Nourse Award.

3. I work with CEOs and their teams to uncover and align values, understand beliefs and behaviours, establish critical priorities and facilitate a process that builds the resiliency to communicate with candour and comfort to stimulate growth. As a result, I have had the pleasure of witnessing many companies move their strategic intent into meaningful initiatives and achieve challenging goals.

Learn more...

PASSIONS: 1. I am passionate about helping people gain deeper insights, make better decisions, create real impact and become the best version of themselves.

2. I live by the following core values: Dedication to seek better solutions, the desire to do what’s right, expand knowledge and be creative.

3. I am curious and a life-long learner. I love to research, read and to listen to audiobooks.

NAWEED SYED CAREER HIGHLIGHTS:

Since the 1990s, I have had many firsts in my field. I am the first scientist to: 1. Have connected brain cells with a semiconductor chip, which has applications for brain-control prosthetic devices to managing depression, epilepsy and other neurological disorders (2003); 2. Perform single-cell brain cell transplants in living animals; and, 3. Reconstructed the respiratory network in cell culture.

These last two studies were declared as the breakthrough of the decade of the brain.

Learn more...

TITLE: Professor, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary

PASSIONS: 1. My top passion is service to society, community work and giving back.

2. I am passionate about the promotion of education and research in underprivileged and third world countries. I am currently involved in several programs that have helped educate over 90,000 underprivileged children in Pakistan.

3. I have a love for poetry and philosophy, and recommend reading “Divan Of Hafez”, “The Soul of Rumi”, and any work by Khalil Gibran, including “The Prophet”.

NOVEMBER 2023 A Note From Heather Marshall | Impact | Around The Corner | Alumni Company Deal Flow | Mentor Spotlight | Venture View THE ROCKIES' REPORT

VENTURE VIEW

Solving Big Problems and Building Something Massive

Journey to CDL-Rockies Session 1 Every year, the CDL-Rockies community – corporate partners, mentors, team members, ventures, and guests – meets in downtown Calgary for Session 1.

This event pairs deep science and technology founders with business experts, industry leaders and renowned scientists who support them in building something massive.

While many CDL-Rockies community members get their first look at these founders at Session 1, the work starts much earlier for the CDL-Rockies team, legal and ecosystem partners, scientists, economists and investigators, who spend months behind the scenes preparing the cohort and setting the stage for the nine-month program.

This group begins working on the following year’s cohort as soon as Session 1 begins, with one goal in mind: to find the highest quality science-and technology-based founders who require business mentorship to commercialize and scale their industrychanging innovations.

“Creating a high-quality cohort takes an immense amount of planning, preparation and collaboration between our team, members of the CDL-Rockies community and the wider CDL network,” says Natasha Spokes, Director, Ventures, CDL-Rockies. “We are grateful for the continued support of our partners, mentors, alumni, and entire community who allow us to help ventures build something massive.”

Read the full story here.

The CDL-Rockies team works for months behind the scenes to create a strong cohort for Session 1.

Photos by Adrian Shellard

ALUMNI COMPANY DEAL FLOW OPEN FUNDRAISING If you are interested in connecting with any of the companies below, please email us with the company name(s) of interest.

Are you raising? Share the details with us here.

Seed extension

Pre-seed Collegium (Prime 2022/23) Maia Farms (Ag 2022/23) Propra Technologies Inc. (Prime 2022/23)

Seed

Bridge Provision Analytics (Prime 2019/20)

AgGene Inc. (Ag 2021/22) Intelligent Project Solutions (Energy 2022/23) Neuraura (Prime 2017/18) OraQ AI (Prime 2022/23) PowerDev (Energy 2022/23) Roshan Water Solutions (Prime 2017/18) TRAINFO (Prime 2019/20) NOVEMBER 2023 THE ROCKIES' REPORT

Capacitech Energy Inc. (Energy 2020/21) True Angle Medical Technologies (Prime 2018/19)

Series A Disa Technologies, Inc. (Energy 2020/21)

Other Hemp Fibre Production Corporation (Ag 2022/23) HyperLume (Prime 2022/23)

A Note From Heather Marshall | Impact | Around The Corner | Alumni Company Deal Flow | Mentor Spotlight | Venture View

AROUND THE CORNER Community Events & Initiatives

ANNOUNCED THIS QUARTER Digital medical-billing platform ResolvMD secures $2-million loan from PaceZero to pursue strategic acquisitions Ontopical closes $3.3 million Seed extension to help companies navigate the local government procurement process Arolytics raises Seed financing led by BDC Capital GeologicAI announces $10M in additional funding from Export Development Canada to accelerate global expansion of its rock analytics platform Calgary-based geothermal company Eavor receives $90M from feds to scale operations

NEWS Adaptable clean-energy technology revolutionizes the fight against climate change Innovations of the World: Perspectives from CDL-Rockies' Mentors Innovations of the World: CDL-Rockies accelerates the commericalization of early-stage ventures Canadian Researchers Receive Funding to Disrupt Gelatin Market with Pea-Based Alternative A record 7 UCalgary scholars named Fellows of Royal Society of Canada Leading U of A researchers recognized by Royal Society of Canada

INITIATIVES Expanding our impact

CDL was created to fill a gap in the market by providing early-stage, deep science and technical founders with access to business mentorship from experienced entrepreneurs, renowned scientists and industry leaders.

As CDL-Rockies has evolved, our ability to support the commercialization of science and technology gives us a unique position in the innovation ecosystem. This position has helped us identify two gaps in the entrepreneurial support network, and as a result, we have expanded our offering to provide solutions to technical founders before and after their CDL journey.

The first gap addresses pre-CDL ventures that require support in assessing areas of weakness within their team, product, market and legal/regulatory needs. Our response was to create the CDL-Rockies Nurture Program. Since we launched Nurture in 2022, we’ve had 172 ventures join, with 43 being accepted into a CDL cohort.

The second area involves executive teams who need to strengthen leadership and build managerial capacity. To address this gap, we developed the Haskayne ScaleUp Program, powered by CDL-Rockies, to support high-growth companies needing to scale their revenue, capital and/or team to expand into global markets. Eight of the nine companies in the program’s pilot year were CDL-Rockies’ alumni, and we are looking to expand those numbers as we move into the second year of programming.

NOVEMBER 2023 A Note From Heather Marshall | Impact | Around The Corner | Alumni Company Deal Flow | Mentor Spotlight | Venture View THE ROCKIES' REPORT

AROUND THE CORNER Community Events & Initiatives

INITIATIVES CDL-Rockies Opportunities Scholarship

In 2022, in partnership with Ag stream Founding Partner and Fellow Alison Sunstrum and MindFuel, we launched the CDLRockies Opportunities Scholarship to encourage young women across the Prairies to pursue careers in STEM. The scholarship is awarded annually to two Grade 12 students graduating from Alberta, Saskatchewan or Manitoba who identify as woman, two-spirit, transgender or non-binary and who will be entering a STEM-related program at a postsecondary institution in one of the prairie provinces.

This year, the scholarship, worth $2,500 (distributed over a two-year period) each, has been awarded to Erica Chow, who is enrolled in the Computer Science program at the University of Calgary, and Paige Thompson, who is pursuing her Bachelor of Design in City Innovation at the University of Calgary.

To learn more about the CDL-Rockies Opportunities Scholarship, visit MindFuel’s website.

UCeed celebrates three years and launch of Neuro Fund

CONNECT

As Canada’s first and largest philanthropically driven, university-based investment fund of its kind, UCeed celebrated its milestones in its Momentum Report. UCeed has $22M in assets under management and has invested $6.19M in its portfolio of 44 companies. With the addition of UCeed Neuro, there are now have six funds that are taking rolling applications.

IMPACT As of October 2023

NOVEMBER 2023 THE ROCKIES' REPORT

A Note From Heather Marshall | Impact | Around The Corner | Alumni Company Deal Flow | Mentor Spotlight | Venture View