NORTH FORGE
North Forge Technology Exchange was formed in 2016 by a merger of The Eureka Project with AssentWorks and the Ramp Up Manitoba/Startup Winnipeg groups and has helped create more than 200 companies in the province. Photo by Darcy Finley
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“You should also have a solid business foundation, particularly around finances. If your (goal) is to get seed investment, you’ll have legal documents in place and everything else you need to qualify to go and get investment dollars.” North Forge is primarily looking at companies in the pre-commercial stage, that are looking to attract their first customer or earn their first dollar. Schaerer says North Forge was there for Northstar in its early days and helped it raise capital and attract new customers. “North Forge is crucial for early-stage companies. You need to incorporate, get accounting, financing, grants, all of the things you don’t know about. Having North Forge in our corner was a big help. It made things easier to navigate,” he says. Schaerer hopes to launch its products to more Canadian airports next year but he has his eye on an even bigger prize. He believes his potential market is any organization that needs any kind of surface cleaned, whether that’s snow on streets and in parking lots in the winter,
worms in the summer or leaves in the fall. Rempel says robotics are clearly going to be a part of how airports are run in the near future. North Forge offers a number of courses to entrepreneurs including the Grow Startup Program which shows business owners how to take their ideas to the next level.
At the same time, its international program is aiming to attract companies from other countries to set up in Manitoba with the goal of building out across North America. North Forge was formed in 2016 by a merger of The Eureka Project with AssentWorks and the Ramp Up Manitoba/ Startup Winnipeg groups. Combined, they have helped create more than 200 companies in the province and raised more than $250 million in capital. North Forge runs a 12-week business acceleration course called the Grow Startup Program in which a group of entrepreneurs are shown how to take their ideas to the next level, including getting customers, gaining market traction and even becoming investment-ready. “We meet with them, get a sense of where they’re at and where we can best help. At the end, they should be able to get a lot more customers and grow their company,” Dukes says.
“North Forge is going to lead us there as an airport authority. We can facilitate companies such as Northstar and ATI to have something that is potentially brought to market in the next couple of years and Manitoba being seen as a leader in this type of innovation,” he says. ■
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WINTER 2019
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