Velocity Fund Flourishes and Continues to Fund Student Startups

The University of Waterloo’s Velocity Fund was established in 2011 following a donation of $1 million by Kik founder and Velocity Residence alumnus Ted Livingston.

The Velocity Fund is a grant program for startups and aspiring entrepreneurs to win funding through competitions held three times per year with four $25K grants for the best companies who are current students or recent alumni who have graduated within the past year.

Late last year, Velocity received a donation from the founders of BufferBox (a previous winner) to encourage the creation of a hardware award given the additional costs to build successful hardware startups.

Now established, the Velocity $10K Hardware award is a grant for the best hardware company who wins the Velocity Fund $25K.

Velocity also awards three $1K grants for very early stage startups with the most innovative business, best pitch and people choice’s.

In March 2014, Velocity received another $1 million donation – this time from renowned Waterloo Region angel investor Mike Stork.

Yesterday at the University of Waterloo the Velocity Fund continued to fund the best student startups.

10 young entrepreneurs started off this season’s Velocity event pitching live for three $1K prizes. Out of ten competing companies, Suncayr won two of the awards: Most Innovative and People’s Choice. Boogaloo Bunks won Best Pitch.

The afternoon’s $25K competition drew a huge standing-room-only crowd and in the end, ExVivo Labs, Grobo, MAJiK Systems and Ubiq were awarded gigantic $25K cheques.

Congrats to everyone involved.