From plastic alternatives to meaningful medicine, the Desjardins Group Startup Prize accelerates startups at all stages
When you are the founder of a young company, a little bit of capital can go a long way and be the difference between going big or going out of business.
The Desjardins Startup Prize, part of a partnership between University of Toronto Entrepreneurship (UTE) and Desjardins Group, which includes an annual Speaker Series, aims to ensure that more early-stage companies have the chance to grow.
Each March, the university hosts an annual business pitch competition that offers over $100,000 in prizes to recognize, reward and accelerate the most innovative and promising startups in our ecosystem.
“The first major expenses we needed for our company, I charged to my credit card. Starting a business when you’re 22 years old can be stressful,” explains Zain Zaidi, co-founder of TransCrypts.
A total of eight cash prizes are up for grabs, ranging from $5,000 for third place in the early-stage category to $40,000 for first place in the late-stage category. There is even a People’s Choice award so the live audience can vote on their favourite. These non-dilutive prizes are meant to help entrepreneurs bring their ideas to life and catalyze startup growth – without giving up any equity in their business.
“Entrepreneurs are incredible drivers for innovation when they get the resources they need. Desjardins Group is empowering young, ambitious minds to turn big ideas into solutions that make a positive impact in their communities. The guidance they get from UTE to help them do that is invaluable,” says Guy Cormier, President and CEO of Desjardins Group.
The Desjardins Startup Prize is back this year and accepting applications. It feels like a perfect opportunity to revisit the startups that have won this top award over the years (it has gone by different names), where they are now and how a small amount funding at the right time set them up for success.
Genecis founder Luna Yu competed for the top startup in 2018, in the early-stage category. At the time, Genecis was working on securing patents and developing its core technology of turning food waste into biodegradable plastics. The company didn’t have any commercial adopters or investors but was working to build partnerships and validate its technology with their stakeholders.
“Winning the Prize was a turning point for us at Genecis. It provided the resources and recognition we needed to move from an idea to a growing company, and it validated the potential impact of our technology on a larger scale,” says Yu.
Genecis invested the prize money in key areas such as research and development, team growth and infrastructure to scale product production.
Since their big win in 2018, Genecis has scaled their proprietary technology, secured high-profile investments from the likes of Amazon and Khosla Ventures, and earned several government grants, totaling $35 million. Genecis also recently launched consumer-brand “Mad Tea” to commercialize biopolymers.
TransCrypts co-founders Ali Zaheer and Zain Zaidi competed for the Startup Prize in 2022 as a late-stage company. Back then, they had just raised $200,000 USD and were in the beta testing stage.
TransCrypts, a software company that automates HR workflows, was co-founded in 2020 amidst a global pandemic, adding to the long list of struggles entrepreneurs face. In fact, during the darkest times of the pandemic, they weren’t even sure the future they were building this company for would exist.
“Winning this prize told me that maybe the idea I was working on wasn’t a bad one. It told me the thousands of hours and the years of work wasn’t for nothing. This competition gave me the validation that this is what I should put my efforts towards. It told me to shoot for the stars and continue building this company,” says Zaidi.
TransCrypts invested their prize money into rapidly prototyping and improving the product and hiring quality developers. Zaidi describes the competition as “great practice for pitching,” stating this experience was his introduction to the real world.
TransCrypts stands out through its commitment to giving back and making the world a better place. Last year, Zaidi and Zaheer built a medical record database which helped hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine and Turkey receive quality healthcare despite war and uncertainty.
Fast forward to 2024, TransCrypts is an alumnus of the globally recognized Techstars program, has raised $4 million USD and is backed by investors including the likes of Mark Cuban.
HDAX Therapeutics delivers meaningful medicine to unlock the full therapeutic potential of drugs and improve the quality of life of patients suffering from neurological and cardiometabolic diseases.
HDAX Therapeutics co-founder Nabanita Nawar competed for the prize in the late-stage category in 2022. Back then, HDAX Therapeutics had just incorporated, filed their first patent and raised some non-dilutive funding.
Nawar and her co-founder Pimyupa Manaswiyoungkul are both young women of colour, immigrants and scientists-turned-entrepreneurs.
“This was one of the biggest recognitions for us. The impact that this award had was huge. It really got people to recognize who we are in the U of T and Toronto ecosystems. It set the stage for our next big wins and the relationships that we were building… The Startup Prize was a great kick-start to help all the pieces of the puzzle come together,” says Nawar.
HDAX Therapeutics just closed its seed funding round, which raised over $5 million CAD, and both Nawar and Manaswiyoungkul are listed on Forbes 30 under 30.
Xatoms is on a mission to bring clean water to underrepresented groups across the globe using the power of AI and quantum chemistry.
Diana Virgovicova, Xatoms co-founder, competed in the Desjardins Startup Prize in March 2024, in the early-stage category, at which point Xatoms was very focused on research and development.
“The Desjardins Startup Prize showed me to believe in my business and the impact we are making. It encouraged me to think bigger. It opened so many doors for Xatoms – opportunities that helped grow our business tenfold,” says Virgovicova.
Xatoms became a business after winning the Desjardins Startup Prize, when Virgovicova was in her third year at U of T.
Virgovicova has received many awards and recognitions, including an award of excellence from the royal family in Sweden, and recently, the Clean 50 Emerging Leader Award.
Within just a span of seven months, Xatoms reached the final round of the Hult Prize, becoming the first Canadian team in over a decade to do so, and collected over $500,000 in awards at StartupFest in Montreal.
Virgovicova, along with co-founder Kerem Topal Ismail Oglou, and Xatoms Cheif Operating Officer Shirley Zhong, currently have three water purification pilots in Kenya, South Africa and the United States.
For three years, Desjardin’s partnership with University of Toronto Entrepreneurship has fueled entrepreneurial innovation, and prize winners have raised tens of millions in funding and created hundreds of new jobs in areas such as life sciences, sustainability, AI, blockchain and customer packaged goods.
The Desjardins Startup Prize is accepting applications until November 29, 2024. Successful applicants will compete on the main stage at Entrepreneurship Week, UTE’s flagship event, which takes place from March 3-7, 2025, in the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus, at the heart of the discovery district in Toronto.
