Leading entrepreneurs support the Creative Destruction Lab
Published: February 20, 2014
For the past year and a half, the Creative Destruction Lab at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management has cultivated entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas.
One thing that separates the “CDLab” from other startup hubs is its team of nine advisors, known as the G7, who act as mentors and potential investors to these early-stage companies.
The CDLab recently held an awards ceremony to honour its nine mentors, including business leaders such as Lee Lau, who founded ATI Technologies while still a student at U of T. (The company eventually sold for $5.6 billion.)
“I’m a U of T alumnus, and I’ve been fairly fortunate to become pretty successful with my company,” says Lau. “I thought it was time to give back.”
Unlike other venture incubators, the CDLab takes a micro approach to the students and alumni who pass the rigorous screening process and make it into the eight-month program. Ventures are selected on their potential to scale up their ideas, the viability of their product/service, and the commitment of their founding team to make their project a success.
The Lab’s list of mentors reads like a Who’s Who of 21st century Canadian entrepreneurs: Dennis Bennie, founder of several technology companies; Nick Koudas, U of T Computer Science professor and co-founder of Sysomos; Ted Livingston of mobile application company Kik Interactive; Geordie Rose, founder of D-Wave; alumnus Daniel Debow, founder of Rypple; Lee Lau, co-founder of Alignvest Capital Management; Jevon MacDonald, founder of GoInstant; alumnus Nigel Stokes, software entrepreneur and venture investor; and John Francis, of the Fraser Kearney Capital Corp.
Michael Helander started OTI Lumionics with two other partners. The company recently joined the CDLabs cohort for 2014. With a PhD from U of T in Materials and Science Engineering, and a Governor General’s Gold Medal for exceptional academic achievement, no one can accuse Helander of lacking academic credibility.
But the business world requires specific skills.
Helander has found the Lab and its Fellows to be an enormous resource for helping him navigate the world of venture capitalists and potential investors. He’s noticed that people from technical backgrounds tend to surround themselves with other tech-types, but aspiring tycoons really need advice from mentors with business skills.
“It brings together people who’ve also been through it themselves,” says Helander. "There aren’t just professors, but successful Canadian entrepreneurs who can provide critical feedback.”
Although the CDLab originally sought to develop entrepreneurs that would attract $50 million in equity value, the participating startups have managed to attract more than $65 million.
“We want to help the game-changers of tomorrow,” says Colleen McMorrow from the accounting firm Ernst & Young which supports the CDLab and other startup incubators around the world. “Innovation is a robust pipeline to develop products. And that pipeline starts right here.”
Dominic Ali is a writer with University Relations at the University of Toronto.
