Launch Canada Competitors

Techstars helps founders scale their startups into world-changing businesses. Founded in 2006, Techstars is on a mission to invest in startups to enable more capital to flow to more entrepreneurs around the world in order to deliver exceptional returns to our investors. We do this by operating accelerator programs and venture capital funds, as well as by connecting startups, investors, corporations, and cities to help build thriving startup communities. Our results show why Techstars is Better for Founders than any other global accelerator: On average, 74.5% of Techstars companies will raise money within 3 years of their program; 18.5% of Techstars portfolio companies have exited 5 years after their program and 31.1% after eight years. (PitchBook June 2023)

The Founder Institute is the #1 place in the world to turn ideas into fundable startups, and startups into global businesses. Since 2009, our series of highly-structured accelerator programs have given founders the direction and global network needed to build a meaningful business. It all starts with our renowned ‘FI Core’ accelerator (https://fi.co/program), which pushes founders at the idea and pre-seed stages to reach the milestones needed for investment and sustained growth. Alumni of FI Core then get free access to our advanced ‘Founder Lab’ accelerators for years to come (https://fi.co/scale), and can get matched with prospective investors in the FI Venture Network (https://fi.co/investors), a collection of global funds actively investing in the earliest rounds of funding. The results speak for themselves: FI Alumni have raised over $1.9 billion in funding and are building meaningful businesses across 200+ cities and 6 continents.

MaRS is the world's largest urban innovation hub in Toronto that supports startups in the health, cleantech, fintech, and enterprise sectors. When MaRS opened in 2005 this concept of urban innovation was an untested theory. Today, it’s reshaping cities around the world. MaRS has been at the forefront of a wave of change that extends from Melbourne to Amsterdam and runs through San Francisco, London, Medellín, Los Angeles, Paris and New York. These global cities are now striving to create what we have in Toronto: a dense innovation district that co-locates universities, startups, corporates and investors. In this increasingly competitive landscape, scale matters more than ever – the best talent is attracted to the brightest innovation hotspots.