Nunafab, SnapWrite, Aruna Revolution among the startups that will win cash prizes at Elevate

Elevate Festival 2024 wrapped up in Toronto yesterday with its third and final day, with seven Canadian tech startups winning a share of this year’s prize money.

Since its launch in 2017, the Elevate Festival has consistently promoted Canadian companies through various competitions, and the 2024 event was no exception. This year, startups had the opportunity to raise over $275,000 in grants and investment opportunities.

Firehood upped the ante in the Elevate Women+ competition by donating $200,000 to gender-diverse women and founders.

One of the biggest prizes up for grabs this year was the Women+ investment as part of the Elevate Women+ Business Incubator, offered in partnership with The Firehood.

Initially announced as a grand prize of $100,000, The Firehood announced on stage that the Women+ competition had doubled that amount to $200,000.

The Women+ Incubator is an eight-week program for women and gender-diverse founders to gain investment readiness skills, meet directly with investors and have a chance to compete for a cash prize.

The winner of this year’s $200,000 grand prize is Oakville, Ontario-based Nunafab. The startup, led by CEO and co-founder Cynthia Ene, develops high-quality materials for the construction and manufacturing industries.

The second-place prize of $25,000 went to Infinite Harvest Technologies, based in Niagara, Ontario. The startup, led by co-founder Tamara Lockwood-Ortiz, has developed a waste management process for the agri-food industry: it uses insects to biodigest organic waste and then harvests these insects as ingredients for pet food and aquaculture feed, poultry feed and fertilizers organic.

The third surprise under the Women+ program was awarded to Montreal-based Oasis Learning AI, headed by co-founder and CEO Karine Bah Tahé. The startup uses artificial intelligence to deliver personalized, scalable and updated training programs for employees. Courtesy of AWS, Oasis Learning will receive $500,000 in AWS Activate credits.

Athiya Rastogi, CEO of SnapWrite, a Toronto-based AI startup, has won a C$10,000 grant in the eCommerce North Innovator Challenge. The challenge is a four-week competition in which e-commerce start-ups have the opportunity to present their startup in exchange for a grant. In the competition organized by Moneris, five founders presented their solutions to a panel of judges and an audience of investors and ecosystem stakeholders.

SnapWrite has developed a platform that enables brands and retailers to automate image-based product detail pages while enabling them to create a resale channel for their products.

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On the second day, Elevate selected three winners of the six-week Sustainable Changemaker Challenge, which selected technology start-ups creating solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero.

Taking the top spot was Dartmouth, Nova Scotia-based Aruna Revolution, which develops plastic-free, compostable menstrual pads. The startup, founded by CEO Rashmi Prakash, will pocket $25,000 from the challenge.

Toronto-based CERT Systems, which took second place in the Sustainable Changemaker Challenge, won $10,000 for its electrochemical process that converts carbon dioxide emissions into high-value chemicals.

Third place went to Burnaby, British Columbia-based NANOSentinel Technologies, which has developed a toxic metals monitoring system for clean energy OEMs and the critical minerals industry. The startup took home $5,000 from the Elevate Festival.

“We have shared a lot of great news recently and I am excited to continue building momentum,” wrote NANOSentinel CEO and founder Viridiana Perez in a LinkedIn post after the win. “Sustainability in mining will not happen overnight and we still have a lot of work to do.”

Photo courtesy of Elevate.