Startups are hard. In Canada there has been a lot of effort to make it a little less hard with a large collection of fantastic programs and ecosystem development. Over the last 10-15 years we have seen some positive results and an overall increase in funding. But it doesn’t change the level of difficulty.
Too many great founders still struggle to gain escape velocity and grow.
Overall, funding has increased but it is concentrated in a relatively small number of deals. The bulk of the increased investment is going towards growing companies while starting companies get caught in an increasingly confusing funding market.
Early stage founders are getting a lot of advice, a little bit of funding, but too few are finding their way to long term success. We want to change that.
We founded EigenSpace knowing that founders benefit from coaching and focused help and that gives them a greater chance at long term success. At EigenSpace we have structured a program, funding, and ongoing coaching/support along with an understanding it can take 10 years to become an overnight success.
Nigel, David, Victoria, and I have been involved with startups for a long time. Nigel has built companies, brought them public, and sold them over 25 years. David studied in the US, spent time in Austin, with Microsoft in Canada, and was the voice of the modern tech movement in Toronto that started with DemoCampToronto. Victoria worked with Velocity while a co-op student at the University of Waterloo and helped build the organization people see today, moving on to Thalmic (North) as a very early employee and stuck with them all the way to the sale to Google. I have built Velocity, the Creative Destruction Lab, Volta, founded/exited a SaaS company, and worked on teams like Boltmade that sold to Shopify.
We are going to work with up to five teams at a time and focus on their success. The cohort structure gives founders a peer group that we believe is important and valuable. The first 10-12 weeks are intensive. After that we move to a less intensive coaching program aimed at reinforcing the work that we started and being there to help you as you grow and develop. That program is as long as you need it.
We invest $50 000 for 3.5% of common shares ( in a SAFE). Our ideal founder is very early stage, software driven, and we focus on helping them get to a Seed round that sets them up for success.
The four of us have worked together in some capacity for over 10 years. We have taken that experience and distilled it down to the fundamentals that have proven to work for founders while eliminating the distractions that don’t.
If you are an early stage founder, fill out our simple form and let's have a conversation! We have a couple spaces left for our first cohort.