Media Releases

Aird & Berlis partners with University of Toronto to offer legal advice to early-stage startups

August 10, 2015

Toron­to, ON — Aird & Berlis LLP (A&B) has become the spon­sor­ing legal part­ner to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Ear­ly-Stage Tech­nol­o­gy Pro­gram (UTEST).

UTEST is a 12-month incu­ba­tion and accel­er­a­tion pro­gram co-man­aged by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to (U of T) and MaRS Inno­va­tion that allows select­ed U of T‑affiliated ear­ly-stage start­up com­pa­nies to incor­po­rate, use office space, receive men­tor­ship and access $30,000 in fund­ing, with oppor­tu­ni­ties for fol­low-on fund­ing from MaRS Inno­va­tion. UTEST was recent­ly named one of Canada’s most promis­ing start-up accel­er­a­tors in an online series by BetaK­it, a dig­i­tal pub­li­ca­tion that cov­ers Cana­di­an tech­nol­o­gy.

“We are thrilled to part­ner with A&B and lever­age their legal exper­tise for our star­tups and emerg­ing com­pa­nies,” said Kur­tis Scis­sions, UTEST co-direc­tor. “To date, 17 com­pa­nies, includ­ing Grana­ta Deci­sion Sys­tems, Whirlscape, Crowd­mark, eQOL and Trend­MD, have suc­cess­ful­ly grad­u­at­ed from our pro­gram. We look for­ward to adding A&B’s Star­tups Team of lawyers to our men­tor­ship group for the UTEST pro­gram, begin­ning in 2015.”

A&B’s Star­tups Team, led by Rebec­ca Kaca­ba and Mat Gold­stein, offers a range of legal ser­vices to new com­pa­nies in the tech­nol­o­gy, dig­i­tal or con­sumer appli­ca­tion spaces. A&B sup­ports star­tups at every stage of devel­op­ment, from incor­po­ra­tion, incu­ba­tion and com­mer­cial­iza­tion through to the pub­lic offer­ing.

The A&B Star­tups Team advis­es on all aspects of cap­i­tal raising—including seed, angel and ven­ture capital—as well as cor­po­rate devel­op­ment, merg­ers and acqui­si­tions, prod­uct and tech­nol­o­gy licens­ing, pri­va­cy, anti-spam and oth­er com­mer­cial con­sid­er­a­tions. A&B also lever­ages its broad net­work of entre­pre­neurs and fun­ders to make strate­gic intro­duc­tions and con­nec­tions.

“We already have a close rela­tion­ship with both MaRS Inno­va­tion and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Inno­va­tions and Part­ner­ships Office,” said Rebec­ca Kaca­ba, part­ner at A&B and leader of the firm’s Star­tups Team. “We look for­ward to coun­selling the suc­cess­ful com­pa­nies and indi­vid­u­als who grad­u­ate from UTEST, and to con­tin­ue work­ing with UTEST to build a suc­cess­ful growth pro­gram for ear­ly-stage entre­pre­neurs.”

About the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to is home to a diverse ecosys­tem of entre­pre­neur­ship sup­ports, includ­ing accel­er­a­tors, pro­grams, cours­es, class­es and co-cur­ric­u­lar orga­ni­za­tions. Its nine accel­er­a­tors – all under the umbrel­la of the Bant­i­ng & Best Cen­tre for Inno­va­tion and Entre­pre­neur­ship – are spread across sev­er­al dis­ci­plines and pro­vide com­pre­hen­sive resources for entre­pre­neur­ial stu­dents, fac­ul­ty and recent grad­u­ates. To learn more about entre­pre­neur­ship at U of T vis­it entrepreneurs.utoronto.ca.

About Aird & Berlis LLP

Aird & Berlis LLP is a lead­ing Cana­di­an law firm based in Toron­to, serv­ing clients across Cana­da and glob­al­ly. The firm’s prac­tice encom­pass­es all prin­ci­pal areas of busi­ness law, includ­ing corporate/commercial, cor­po­rate finance, bank­ing, insol­ven­cy and restruc­tur­ing, ener­gy, envi­ron­men­tal, infrastructure/P3, tech­nol­o­gy and intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, lit­i­ga­tion, labour and employ­ment, munic­i­pal and land use plan­ning, real estate and tax. The firm’s diverse client base ranges from entre­pre­neurs to multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions.

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For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:

Karen Oliveira
Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Spe­cial­ist, Aird & Berlis LLP
416–865-4634
koliveira@airdberlis.com

Media Rela­tions
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
416 978‑0100
media.relations@utoronto.ca