The TrueBlue Expo held on March 6 was the final event of U of T’s annual Entrepreneurship Week. This event brought together students, startups, and campus programs for a day packed with energy, pitching, and meaningful discussion. 

Hosted at the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus, the day was all about showcasing U of T’s growing startup scene, giving student founders a chance to share what they’re building, meet new people, and make connections. The Varsity interviewed some of the startups at the event to learn about their journey and entrepreneurial ventures.

Tiny tech, big impact

The Desjardins Startup Prize is U of T’s annual pitch competition held in March, where teams present their business idea to a panel of judges to receive funding. Finalists pitch their ideas to investor judges during Entrepreneurship Week.

NanoMorphix was the first place winner of this year’s $15,000 Desjardins Startup Prize in the early-stage category, which is the period when a startup is developing their idea into a product or service. The startup was founded by a team of U of T PhD students and postdoctoral researchers whose research created coatings using nano-reinforcements that can be applied to surfaces like bullet-proof glass to make them tougher, longer-lasting, and even self-healing.  

In an interview with The Varsity, NanoMorphix employee Anthony Tuccitto said that their product isn’t just stronger — it’s also about ten times cheaper than other similar materials currently available. NanoMorphix is now working on patenting its transparent armor and exploring new uses, like turning the coating into durable phone screen protectors. 

Indoor gardens with a purpose

JustVertical is on a mission to change the way we grow and access food. Patrick Ladly-Fredeen, a U of T Rotman alumni, is the company’s head of sales. 

In an interview with The Varsity, Ladly-Fredeen said that the idea started eight years ago when one of the company’s co-founders was researching in northern Canada and looked to create a portable, indoor growing system for food. The company then created ‘vertical gardens,’ which use hydroponic systems to let people grow fresh herbs, leafy greens, and other vegetables indoors. Instead of using soil or sunlight, the plants grow using water and LED lights that mimic natural sunlight. 

According to Ladly, what sets JustVertical apart from other tech startups is their efficient system. Its website states that its system uses 95 per cent less water than traditional gardening, grows larger and healthier plants than other hydroponic systems, and takes up less space. 

The company has grown significantly and now has its own manufacturing facility, patented products, and new gardens installed in homes, schools, and offices across Canada and the US. These systems are also present on the U of T campus — the indoor Garden & Seed Library at the Gerstein Science Information Centre was created by Just Vertical. It has also partnered with institutions like Seneca College on research projects to improve Just Vertical’s systems by increasing the garden’s crop yield and the nutritional content of the food it produces. 

As Patrick puts it, “We want to change the food ecosystem in North America. If we’re in people’s homes, we’re already bigger than any farm.”

Aerospace meets energy innovation

LUNR Corp is a Canadian aerospace startup aiming to launch the first-ever Canadian-made rocket from Canadian soil. Founded just over a year ago, the company emerged due to a clear gap in the industry; Canadian satellites must launch on foreign rockets due to a lack of domestic infrastructure. 

As Canada is currently the only G7 nation without direct access to space, LUNR Corp’s website stated that it aims to help the country achieve sovereign launch capability. With a diverse group of students and engineers specializing in aerospace, automation, and electronics, LUNR Corp is working toward its first test of newly developed rocket engines by this fall.

While challenges like Canada’s lack of launch regulations present obstacles, the team explained to The Varsity in an interview that they remain driven to bring sovereign space access to Canada, and serve potential clients like telecommunication companies who currently rely on foreign launch sites to get their satellites into space

How does U of T support its startups?

Across its three campuses, U of T offers 12 startup incubators and accelerators, which are programs that help student and alumni entrepreneurs from all disciplines turn their ideas into successful ventures. These accelerators provide resources like mentorship, workspace, funding opportunities, and networking events to support students and startups at different stages. Each of the three campuses has its own accelerator tailored to different industries and types of ventures.

The Hatchery, an accelerator out of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, focuses on helping build a team of co-founders, launch the startup, and secure seed funding, which is the initial capital a startup raises to develop its business idea and begin early operations. 

Hatchery member and third year strategic management and political science student Maria Lin told The Varsity in an interview that the accelerator primarily focuses on team projects, offering resources to refine press statements and connect participants with industry mentors. Their ‘NEST’ program is open to all U of T students regardless of their campus, program, or level of study. The program focuses on helping students during brainstorming processes and has contributed to the successful launch of over 100 startups.

At UTSC, The Bridge is the Department of Management’s incubator, focused on providing student entrepreneurs with fundamental business tools through the New Venture Program (NVP). Consisting of both hands-on mentorship from management professors and curated training modules, NVP enables students to balance the process of building their startup with their schoolwork. 

Campus accelerators like the NVP require applications and are currently recruiting new cohorts of students on rolling admissions.

Celestine Nema — UTSC’s program coordinator for Entrepreneurship and Work-Integrated Learning — told The Varsity in an interview that “our staff and our faculty are basically providing resources for students to feel like they have a lot of support. This includes, for example, identifying a challenge they have that we can take off their plate.”

ICUBE UTM provides programs, workshops and resources — such as “Co-Working Space,” which equips entrepreneurs with high speed internet and a space to collaborate with other innovators.

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated due to a factual error. An earlier version incorrectly stated that Nanomorphix’s coatings “contain tiny capsules filled with a special liquid.”