L-SPARK to Send Off Second Cohort at Annual ‘Best in SaaS’ Showcase Event

This year’s graduates announce over $1 million of investment bringing total aggregate of venture investment to over $5 million in 18 months.

OTTAWA, ON – June 22, 2016 – Canada’s only SaaS Incubator and Accelerator, L-SPARK, presented the newest batch of ‘Best in SaaS’ companies at the Great Canadian Theatre Company tonight.

Nine companies exiting the Incubator and four companies graduating from the Accelerator showcased their progress to mentors, advisors, investors and corporate partners from Shopify, Microsoft, IBM and others at the sold out event.

This year’s graduates have raised an aggregate of over $1 million so far, bringing the portfolio’s total amount of venture investment to $5 million in the 18 months that L-SPARK has been in operation. L-SPARK Accelerator companies CareerJSM and Cliniconex each closed seed rounds during the final weeks of the program. Toronto-based CareerJSM, an unprecedented job search management tool for recent graduates, has already been deployed to 70,000 registered students across Ontario.

Cliniconex’s appointment reminder solution that integrates with EMRs is currently helping over 1,000 physicians boost revenues by mitigating cancelled or forgotten medical appointments.

Another Accelerator company, FileFacets, completed their successful transition from a services company to a SaaS company. While in the program, they increased their monthly recurring revenue (MRR) to $100,000 from $7,000. The tool allows organizations to seamlessly classify and structure large amounts of data.

Rounding out the Accelerator cohort is ZINation, an application that allows ecommerce stores to create customizable, shoppable and engaging online catalogs. The company successfully secured a partnership with Shopify, significantly growing the amount of Shopify merchants using their platform.

Three of the nine L-SPARK Incubator companies are headed by female founders.

Co-founder and CEO Jane Wang leads Optimity, a wellness platform revolutionizing the way corporations and organizations instill healthy habits into their workforces.

Academic Lindy Ledohowski has leveraged her background in scholarly writing to co-develop EssayJack, a tool that provides essay structuring to both students and teachers.

Intelocate, founded by Yulia Vasilyeva, centralizes retail supply chain management on one cloud-based platform.

TitanFile allows professionals to secure their communications. The startup is gaining more traction as info security remains a hot button issue for many legal and insurance practices.

BidFoundry is a SaaS platform that addresses the unique needs of collectibles dealers and their clients.

Buildmetric provides business management software for the construction industry. They recently announced they were the sole vendor able to support Ontario home warranty provider Tarion’s switch from paper to digital forms.

Incubator company Pixelera merged with Member365, an all-in-one management platform for member-based organizations.

Fitchek, a marketplace for local health and fitness providers to connect with customers, closed major partnerships with both Under Armour and Fitness Media, amplifying their presence in the fitness space.

Qarrot Performance, formerly Friendefi, closed a very successful pilot with the United States’ largest optometrist retail franchise. The motivation platform for front-line staff enabled the organization to achieve record sales growth.

L-SPARK will accept up to six companies in their next Accelerator cohort, beginning in fall 2016. Applications to the program are open until July 24.

About L-SPARK

L-SPARK is the only Canadian Incubator and Accelerator that focuses exclusively on Enterprise SaaS and cloud start-ups. With established relationships with key venture capital firms, angel investors, and the investment community at large, the goal is to support a deal flow of fundable Enterprise SaaS startup companies in Canada.  Visit us at www.l-spark.com, connect with us on linkedin.com/l-spark or follow us on Twitter @LSPARKGlobal.