The Canada-India Acceleration Program (CIAP), a government-funded program housed within Carleton University dedicated to supporting women entrepreneurs in expanding their business internationally, delightedly announced the fourteen founders and leaders of Ontario-based startups.
Teaming up with Deloitte, Lead Angels, and Forum for International Trade Training (FITT) this year, CIAP aims at paving the way for Canadian startups, specifically women entrepreneurs across the Ontario province, to emerging markets like India. Coming to the program, the participants can expect to:
- Get supported with mentorship sessions called ScaleCamp delivered by industry experts from Canada and India;
- Get positioned within Indian startup communities at CIAP’s Soft-Landing phase with the support of CIAP’s India-based partner;
- Get a chance to be funded by winning one of the three cash prizes from a pool of $30,000 at the end-of-program Pitch Competition.
CIAP’s Cohort 5 can also benefit from other offerings, such as free marketing consultation sessions.
Let’s welcome Cohort 5 to the program! Take a look at these amazing women entrepreneurs and their thriving businesses.
Parastou Shahsamandi Esfahani, Co-Founder and CIO of Maplexcellence
Maplexcellence is an innovative software company that leverages technology for scalable, affordable, efficient, and effective auditing and managing carbon and energy through software solutions.
Jyoti Singh, Manager of TEBO Group
TEBO (Trans-continental Engineers and Builders Organization) Group of Industries is a leading sustainable industrial developer globally. The organization has four decades of experience on all seven continents. They consists of three industries, which are vertically aligned in the construction sector, providing services to the customer as a One-Stop-Shop, yielding fast project execution and overall cost-effectiveness.
Aditi Gupta, CFO (Research & Marketing) of Setu Tech
Setu Tech is a clean tech company that helps their clients – make technology-assisted decisions to enable building better and safer infrastructure; cut costs by strategically performing repairs, and allow the coating of concrete reinforcement with industrial waste products to produce durable civil infrastructure, among other things.
Rani Marvia, CEO of NewCulturx
New Culturx is an inclusive company that offers a host of event and product design services. They specialise in bringing culturally resonant consumer goods to market. Whether you are looking to reach a new demographic, or a creator looking to showcase your designs, their diverse and knowledgeable team will deliver all of that for you.
Kiruthika Vamatheavan, Founder of Rossahut Inc
Rossahut Inc is one of its kind, selling real roses that last 365+ days. They are changing the landscape of the flower industry business with these luxurious roses.
Amie Reiman, Founder and CEO of Hip Lives
Hip Lives Inc was founded as a platform to raise awareness around a variety of ways to connect with our health in progress. Their mission is to grow an inclusive holistic community built from and driven by a compassion for all lives, uniquely meeting the needs of each individual as they progress towards better health.
Karen Brunet, Founder and CEO of Activkare
ActicKare is a medical device distribution company focused on the commercialization of life-changing, environmentally friendly, and reusable alternatives to diapers and pads for urinary incontinence that not only benefit the public but the environment.
Yelena Anikeyeva, Operator and Materials Planner of Power of Ostrich
Power of Ostrich is a unique skincare company that formulates skin care products made using Ostrich Yolk and Ostrich Oil. Each component in their product has a beneficial effect on consumers’ skin and helps with skin diseases such as psoriasis, dermatitis, burns, ulcers, eczema, and sunburn, and also regenerates the skin after cuts, scars, scratches and irritations. Thanks to its high content of nutrients, their product can be used continuously to restore and protect dry skin.
Aliya Kassamali, Founder of The Health Aisle
The Health Aisle, Health care helps brands deliver better digital experiences to patients in order to remain relevant, build trust, and scale services. They help build trust by delivering high-quality, medically reviewed content , curated to match their readers’ backgrounds and geographic locations.
Keri Bank, Co-founder of Magnify Access
The Magnify Access team provides services on a multitude of projects focused on increasing digital accessibility in Canada. These projects have increased support for alternative formats, electronic records, documentation transmission, accommodated test booking, institutional-wide accessibility, universal design, inclusive adaptive technology, etc.
Adolphina Wilson, Executive Director of Wasswell Green Cleaners
Wasswell Green Cleaners are a residential, automotive, and commercial cleaning company. They provide both personal and professional development opportunities to the local community by supporting members that are not connected to education programs, employment programs, and training programs to exit poverty and social assistance.
Shohreh Sabaghpour, Founder and CEO of Lumesmart
Lumesmart is a leading provider of LED lighting solutions that bring you the newest and most advanced eco-friendly lighting technology available in the market. Lumesmart empowers its customers and business partners to grow through smarter, sustainable, and viable lighting solutions.
Alisha Gardonis, COO of Nivestiv
Nvestiv leverages technology and artificial intelligence to streamline the process of raising and allocating capital. It is a platform that connects investment data analysis leads with investors and sponsors.They also work with a specialised team of dealmakers and advisors that facilitates investments by converting capital introductions into lasting relationships.
Nadia Ladak, Co-founder and CEO of Marlow
Marlow is a new menstrual health company that developed the first-ever lubricated tampon for smoother and more comfortable insertion. Their mission is to help women battle the pain or discomfort that comes with using tampons. Marlow helps women prioritize menstrual and sexual health, and is a safe space to learn. The company delivers their products through a direct-to-consumer subscription model.
Tsegereda Assgedom, Director of Sheba Enterprises Inc
A Toronto-based small business founded in 1998 and driven by a love for coffee. In addition to their main market in Greater Toronto Area, they also ship to cities across Canada. Their coffee varies in taste and colour including green beans and roasted whole beans. Sheba Enterprises Inc. is the parent company of Rahyahs Coffee has been involved in farms located in Ethiopia since 2008.
Mila Banerjee, CEO of Pronti AI
Pronti AI is your smart wardrobe assistant that helps you wear and buy more consciously. Available on iOS and Android, they use artificial intelligence to understand a user’s mood, style, and closet items to generate outfits from your closet, and recommend personalized shopping items. Pronti has built an innovative feature called Shop-with-Closet that allows users to see outfits generated with a retailer’s new items styled with items they already own.
Karen Elliot, Co-founder of Cinareo
Cinareo is a new and innovative cloud-based Workforce Management (WFM) application that sets a new standard for strategic capacity planning and decision support for omnichannel contact centre environments. They serve public and private sector organizations across industries, those that require sophisticated capacity planning capabilities.
Thyagi DeLanerolle, CEO and Co-founder of OOt Media Holdings Inc.
OOt is live interactive map platform with a built-in data API architecture that allows users to see, chat, and connect with persons who share similar interests to them in-person on-premises. OOt puts the social world around you at your fingertips. You can join communities of interest, like lovers of spicy food, parents with small kids, or baseball fans. On the live OOt map, you can see where people in your communities are hanging out — where do people with your interests gather?
Yinyan Zhang, Marketing Director of Trustiics Inc.
Trustiics is a team of lawyers, software engineers, product designers, marketers and business executives based in Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Shanghai. Their award-winning platform offers fast, reliable, and affordable legal services to help North American SMEs mitigate international business risks.
Cheryl Bedard, Founding Partner of InCritical Solutions Inc.
Formed amid the Covid-19 pandemic, InCritical Solutions Inc. holds a mission to answer the current need for new, secure, and accredited supply chain opportunities.They provide immediately available, inexpensive, supplying on-demand potable water throughout buildings. InCritical was founded by three partner with over 30 years of experience in their respective fields.
Marissa Vettoretti, Co-Founder and Head of Product of EarthSuds
EarthSuds is a social enterprise that aims to reduce plastic bottles in cosmetics by selling zero-waste tablets of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. EarthSuds has been able to partake previously in the AC Jumpstart Canada and Next Founders Canada program, while having many competition successes such as being named top 10 in National Geographic’s global Ocean Plastic Innovation Challenge. EarthSuds currently sells online, to retailers, and is soon to be listed on Amazon.
Jennifer Lowthian, CEO and Co-Founder of HARDR
On the forefront of digital medicine, HARDR. is a Digital Therapeutic & Wearable For Men’s Sexual Dysfunction.
Stella Y. W., Co-Founder and Head of Product of Shakudo
Shakudo is an easy-to-use data platform that has everything that a data team needs to deliver products end-to-end and continuously adds new integrations that data teams want. By using Shakudo data teams become less reliant on engineers. Shakudo’s platform automates many common engineering and development tasks, and comes with built-in tools that simplify the process of scaling data solutions.
Lyn Chen, COO and Co-Founder of webapp.io
Webapp.io’s hosted test environments build 10x faster than existing CI/CD platforms. Speed up your webapp development process with faster builds, full-stack preview environments, debug terminals, and more!
Abby Fraser, Marketing Director of CAKE CAPITAL
CAKE Capital is a full financial ecosystem where SMB’s go to grow, to have better access to day-to-day tools to make operations simpler and more efficient.
Shriya Gupta, CEO and Co-Founder of Daily Blends
Daily Blends is redefining convenience for the modern consumer through its AI-powered smart vending machines that offer a curated selection of chef-prepared fresh and healthy on-the-go meals. Daily Blends is on a mission to make high-quality food accessible.
Key Takeaway
With companies ranging from the beauty industry, and manufacturing, to healthcare and more, this is truly a cohort packed with change-makers and thought leaders. CIAP is proud to be a part of these women entrepreneurs’ growth journey. As our efforts in supporting this cohort are ongoing, we are continuing to accept applications from Canadian women entrepreneurs.
