Toronto’s INcubes Sifts Through 400 Applications to Select Fourth Cohort

[IN]cubes logo

In the fall of 2011 Techvibes reported that a new incubator was launching in Toronto called INcubes.

Twenty months later and they’re already on to their fourth intake and last week they announced their most recent cohort. 

According to INcubes founder and CEO Ben Zlotnick they had close to 400 applications to sift through this time around and the upcoming summer program will have a “high focus on building revenue generating businesses.”

The seven companies joining Incubes are ARB Labs, Fashion Forward, AppGeek, Lightning Platform, Modreal, Alertly, and Qoints.

Over the past three years, dozens of accelerators and accelerator-like programs have emerged in Canada. However, there is debate about their value—do accelerators hurt startups, and can the accelerators themselves succeed?

New research by MaRS Data Catalyst last week provided a “fact-based foundation for discussion.” The report cites Canada as having seven “true” accelerators: GrowLab in Vancouver; Hyperdrive in Waterloo; FounderFuel in Montreal; and Extreme Startups, INcubes, Jolt, and Utest in Toronto.

Check out MaRS’ visualization of Canadian accelerator data here, including how many offer equity for funding, how big the ecosystem is in terms of mentors and founders, and the selection process.