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Cornwall Innovation Centre Announces Lead To Win Ventures

June 1, 2017
By Bob Peters

Cornwall Ontario – The Cornwall Innovation Centre is pleased to announce two new green-rated ventures who have earned entry into the Lead To Win business accelerator program.

“We know there are businesses that can benefit from Lead To Win and we’re happy to have found two more to join the CIC,” said John Rattray, co-chair of the CIC’s Board of Directors.  “It will be exciting to see even more entrepreneurs accessing our services.”

The latest “Green”-rated ventures are:

  • Kazulin Boats, makers of handcrafted luxury sports boats.  Based in Cornwall, ON the company is led by Tony Kazulin, a seventh-generation boat builder.
  • Pretty Bird App, a service that connects beauty pros with clients, on-demand and on-site. Mary Bratko and Mark Wilson of Mississauga, ON head up the venture.

This is the second Venture Demo Day held since the Cornwall Innovation Centre opened its doors on April 6, 2017. The first Venture Demo Day took place on April 20 and saw three ventures accepted into the program.

  • EVO WEIGH, a manufacturing company based out of Chesterville, ON, headed by Hayley and Matt Cooke. The company has designed and will produce lightweight, robust, modular weigh scales.
  • Smart Greens, based in Cornwall, ON, and presented by Eric Bergeron and Eric Lang. The company is building a network of local hydroponic farmers growing fresh greens in their respective communities across Canada and the United States.
  • Quesnel Consulting, offering Salesforce.com implementation and optimization services, is based in Cornwall, ON. Derek Quesnel leads the company.

The CIC’s Lead To Win program is modeled after Carleton University’s offering, recently named one of the Top 10 accelerator programs in North America.

Entrepreneurs have 20 minutes to pitch their business plans to a review panel made up of local business professionals—10 minutes to present and 10 minutes to answer questions. After deliberations, the review panel assess each venture with a green, yellow or red rating. A“green” rating is an invitation to join the Lead To Win program. “Yellow”-rated ventures are directed to continue to build their business case and invited to return to pitch at future events, while  “Red”-rated ventures are alerted to deficiencies in their plans and advised to rework their approach.

Green-rated ventures have exclusive access to Lead To Win benefits including high-level mentorship, capacity development events, early buyer support, funding, IT support, co-working spaces at the NAV CENTRE and on-site wellness amenities. Eligible candidates are expected to generate $1M in annual revenues by their third year of operation.

The next Venture Demo Day is set for August 30, 2017.

About the Cornwall Innovation Centre

The Cornwall Innovation Centre (CIC) helps local entrepreneurs spark, incubate and accelerate their business ideas. It offers a full range of content and programming including classes designed to empower entrepreneurs, talks from business leaders, and inspiration sessions from leading venture builders. The CIC is open to innovators and doers who seek to follow their dreams in building better business solutions and making an impact on the local and global scene.

More info:

More information on the Cornwall Innovation Centre can be found in the 2017 edition of Cornwall Livingmagazine. Fill out the Request Info form on this website to request a copy of the magazine.

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