Two events that proved to be extremely successful and valuable to our start-up community during last week’s Entrepreneur Week.

The Founders and Funders dinner event is a targeted event run by Communitech, one that is intended to put those who need money in a room with those that have it.  We had over 80 companies and 50 funders meet at La Hacienda Sarria on November 19th to engage in conversation and discuss opportunities.

Strategic Partnering day took place on November 20th and it grew significantly in magnitude this year. We had 10 Strategic Partners participate in the day – RIM, Google, Rogers, Intel, Microsoft, Sybase, Celestica, Open Text, On-Semiconductor and Agfa. The day started with Dan Mathers (Communitech EIR) hosting a Q&A panel with all partners. Valuable insight was shared with the 100+ person audience on “Partnering- Who, What, Where, When and Why”.  Afterward, the “big guys” were lined up to meet with over 26 start-ups to trigger some relationship building and discuss potential future opportunities for collaboration, partnering, etc.  In total, 45 one-on-one meetings took place and the feedback from both sides is extremely positive so far,  indicating that doors that had previously proved challenging to get a foot in have started swinging open.

– Karen