The Montreal Founder Institute Set to Host First Ever Public Demo Day in April

March 15, 2018

One of North America’s most prestigious accelerators is letting the Canadian public in for a quick glance at exactly what they do and how they do it.

The Founder Institute (FI) in Montreal is hosting their first ever public demo day, which also happens to be the first such public event in Canada so far for the organization. The public event is happening on April 24 at the Rialto Theatre. Up until now, the demo days have been reserved for mentors, investors, VCs and partners of the FI.

It is now the fourth year of operation for FI in Montreal, and they wanted to celebrate by opening up the demo day to showcase the cutting-edge technologies and companies that have emerged from the latest graduates of FI Montreal so far. The FI also operates in Toronto.

“The founding principle of Founder Institute is that you can build a vibrant, active startup community in every city around the world. The companies launched with us in Montreal will change, if successful, the way everything works for us in our society,” said Sergio A. Escobar , managing director of the Montreal Founder Institute . “We are asking the help from everybody to build a powerful Montreal ecosystem that sustains itself. It’s time to end the vicious cycle of Canadian companies leaving to the United States for growth and better funding opportunities.”

FI Montreal will support the graduates with a $5,000 cash prize awarded to the most promising startup of the demo day, while also supporting two fellowships in AI for the next FI cohort later on this year.

The cohorts for this demo day represent the diverse background in Canada, as 53 per cent of the winter 17-18 program CEOs are women, and the founders have altogether come from five different continents.

The companies participating in this demo day will be released closer to the event day, but be on the lookout for businesses focusing on AI, genomics, education, fintech, e-commerce and SaaS, among other fields. Startups in the FI Montreal cohorts had access to some of the city’s top mentors, including Beth Thouin, Phil Cutler and Mike Cegelski.

The demo day will be powered by OVH, a French cloud provider that has recently announced a massive new influx of employees into Montreal with their first North American location. OVH will also be contributing to the $5,000 prize as well as the AI fellowships.