Invest Nova Scotia Accelerate

Invest Nova Scotia Accelerate helps Nova Scotia technology companies get investment-ready.

Are you a technology start-up looking to accelerate your growth and secure funding? We can help.

Invest Nova Scotia Accelerate is now open for submissions. The deadline for applications is Friday, February 7, 2025, by 5:00 pm AT.

About Invest Nova Scotia Accelerate

Invest Nova Scotia Accelerate is a milestone-based program that helps Nova Scotia start-ups get investment-ready. We are focused on five sectors where we can leverage our deep in-house expertise and our network of experts and investors to deliver value to our clients:

Agriculture Tech: start-ups addressing the global food production challenges while reducing dependency on fossil fuels or petrochemicals.

Clean Tech: start-ups addressing climate change and clean air, water and soil.

Health Tech: start-ups developing new therapeutics, medical devices or digital health technologies solving large unmet healthcare needs.

Ocean Tech: start-ups developing solutions in ocean health, fisheries and aquaculture, offshore energy, shipborne technologies and marine bioresources.

Software: start-ups working on software solutions leveraging artificial intelligence, computer vision, blockchain, or data network effects to solve large unmet market needs.

Invest Nova Scotia Accelerate is delivered in a five-month sprint for this round. Participating companies each receive up to $40,000 in non-dilutive, non-repayable funding to address key technical and business milestones. Companies are eligible for participation in one cohort of the Accelerate program.

In addition to funding, companies get access to a series of acceleration activities and resources. Resources are tailored to the cohorts to provide support where participants need it most. Participants should make every effort to take advantage of all the activities and resources offered, which include:

• Meetings with advisors based on individual needs. Topics may include fundraising, marketing, human resources, and sales support.
• Workshops on a variety of investment-readiness topics. Topics will be tailored to the cohort participants’ industries and needs. Subjects covered during previous cohorts include intellectual property strategy, term-sheets, raising capital, storytelling and more.
• Perks Program offers discounts to 100+ vendors such as HubSpot, Google Cloud, Zoom, Slack, AWS and more.

A minimum of five awards are expected in the current round of Invest Nova Scotia Accelerate.

Important Dates:

Call for submissions: January 14, 2025
Submission deadline: February 7, 2025
Shortlisted companies notified: February 20, 2025
Shortlist pitches: February 26-27, 2025
Winners notified: March 4, 2025
Program begins: April 1, 2025

Eligibility

We’re seeking companies that we see as pipeline for our investment fund in the five sector streams described above.

• Location: Nova Scotia-based. Applicants must be a Nova Scotia registered business in good standing (current registration on the Registry of Joint Stock Companies), have a permanent establishment and have most of its workforce and the majority of its senior leadership residing in Nova Scotia. Details on how to register with Nova Scotia Registry of Joint Stock Companies (RJSC) are available from Service Nova Scotia.
• Financing: Less than $1 million in cumulative sales and less than $250,000 in equity investment (including convertible debt) raised to date.
• Stage: In addition to having identified a large market pain and market opportunity and having established a company around a customer-validated solution, competitive applicants have conducted a thorough competitive analysis and achieved proof of concept or minimum viable product (MVP).
• People: Entrants must be the majority owner(s) (51 per cent or more) of the company and plan to work full-time with the business.

Invest Nova Scotia investment portfolio companies are ineligible for this opportunity.

Evaluation

Submissions will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Management Team: Skillset of key individual(s); entrepreneurial track record; capacity to develop the company and handle risks associated with the venture. We expect applicants to have strong technical and business team members.
• Market Pain & Value Proposition: Problem and size of the market pain (i.e., large international market); solution (i.e., how it works, how it solves the problem, how it is unique); value proposition (i.e., how much time or money the customer will save/generate by using the solution).
• Market Opportunity & Business Model: Description of target customers; quantity of customers; customer validation; revenue model; size of the market opportunity.
• Competition & Go-to-Market: Competitive analysis; barriers to entry (e.g., IP, proprietary data collection); pricing; go-to-market strategy.
• Accelerate Milestones & Success Metrics: Plan and timeline for Invest Nova Scotia Accelerate milestones; list of key activities to achieve milestones; detailed budget for up to $40,000; evidence of execution on past key milestones.
• Capital Requirements & Investment Potential: Feasible, clear plan of execution; venture capital investment potential (i.e., high-growth potential, large market opportunity, attractive return prospects).

How to Apply

Applicants are asked to use our Microsoft Word APPLICATION FORM, answer the questions in the boxes provided and SUBMIT IT ONLINE via our application portal.

If this is your first time applying to a program with Invest Nova Scotia, please contact Kaitlin Webb to request your Customer Number. You will need this number to submit your application online. You will need your payroll and revenue information (if applicable) to submit.

Details about what evaluators look for in a submission, and other information you should know, can be found in the Accelerate Program Guidelines.

Please note that Invest Nova Scotia is unable to accommodate updates once summaries are submitted.

For any questions you may have, reach out to Kaitlin Webb at accelerate@investnovascotia.ca.