Media Releases

U of T’s Creative Destruction Lab Announces Call for Applications from Technology and Machine Learning Ventures.

May 30, 2016

Toron­to, ON – Do you have a tech­nol­o­gy or machine learn­ing start­up that you believe is mas­sive­ly scal­able? The Cre­ative Destruc­tion Lab at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment is now accept­ing appli­ca­tions from ven­tures to be part of its fifth cohort dur­ing the 2016/17 aca­d­e­m­ic year.

Since its incep­tion, over 125 ven­tures have been accept­ed into the Lab of which 45 grad­u­at­ed, with the ven­tures cre­at­ing a total equi­ty val­ue of $300 mil­lion (CDN.)

The Cre­ative Destruc­tion Lab is the world’s pre­mier seed-stage pro­gram for mas­sive­ly scal­able, sci­ence-based ven­tures. It employs an objec­tives-based men­tor­ing process with the goal of max­i­miz­ing equi­ty-val­ue cre­ation and is par­tic­u­lar­ly suit­ed to ear­ly-stage com­pa­nies with links to uni­ver­si­ty research labs. The nine-month pro­gram begins every Sep­tem­ber with two streams – one for tech­nol­o­gy ven­tures and a sec­ond exclu­sive­ly for machine learn­ing and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence ven­tures.

Ben­e­fits of par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pro­gram include:

  • objec­tives-based men­tor­ship from select entre­pre­neurs and angel investors — the G7 and ML7 Fel­lows and Asso­ciates;
  • oppor­tu­ni­ties to raise cap­i­tal;
  • advice on tech­nol­o­gy roadmaps from the Lab’s Chief Sci­en­tists;
  • strat­e­gy and busi­ness devel­op­ment insights from Rot­man fac­ul­ty and MBA stu­dents at Canada’s pre­mier busi­ness school.

The Lab will hold a spe­cial half-day sum­mer work­shop on June 20 for select ven­tures that apply by June 1. The work­shop will fea­ture pre­sen­ta­tions by Lab team mem­bers and focus on entre­pre­neur­ial strat­e­gy, team build­ing, and how to obtain seed-stage financ­ing.

Ven­tures can apply online for the Cre­ative Destruc­tion Lab at www.creativedestructionlab.com.

Final appli­ca­tions are due by August 15 but will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

Found­ed by Prof. Ajay Agraw­al, the Cre­ative Destruc­tion Lab lever­ages the Rot­man School’s lead­ing fac­ul­ty and indus­try net­work as well as its loca­tion in the heart of Canada’s busi­ness cap­i­tal to accel­er­ate mas­sive­ly scal­able, tech­nol­o­gy-based ven­tures that have the poten­tial to trans­form our social, indus­tri­al, and eco­nom­ic land­scape. The Lab has helped many nascent star­tups, includ­ing Atom­wise, Bridg­It, Min­u­um, Nymi, NVBots, OTI Lumion­ics, PUSH, Thalmic Labs, Vertical.ai, Nev­er­frost, Chargespot, and Vote­Com­pass, among oth­ers.

The Rot­man School of Man­age­ment is locat­ed in the heart of Canada’s com­mer­cial and cul­tur­al cap­i­tal and is part of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, one of the world’s top 20 research uni­ver­si­ties. The Rot­man School fos­ters a new way to think that enables our grad­u­ates to tack­le today’s glob­al busi­ness chal­lenges.  For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

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For more infor­ma­tion:
Ken McGuf­fin
Man­ag­er, Media Rela­tions
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Tele: 416–946-3818
E‑mail: mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca

Fol­low Rot­man on Twit­ter @rotmanschool
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