Five early stage companies in Kingston are sharing more than $280,000 in federal funding through the Helix Funding program delivered by the Kingston Economic Development Corporation (KEDCO).
The program was launched last April and offers health and life sciences companies with matching funds between $10,000 and $100,000 for scaling costs, particularly focusing on innovation and advancing commercialization.
Ben McIlquham, KEDCO’s Investment Manager of Life Sciences & Health Innovation, says the program works in collaboration with a network of over 20 health and life sciences programs in the area called the Validation Network which helps connect companies with access to expertise, equipment, and services that generally are out of reach.
He says previous work with the City of Kingston helped identify needs that early stage companies have while trying to take steps forward.
“There’s a broader area of services needed, like help with Health Canada, FDA approval, helping with AI compute, clinical trials,” McIlquham said.
“This is what’s gonna get them to that area where they can do a Series A or Series B raise.”
The first cohort of companies selected through this program are:
- Cntrl+ Inc., a femtech startup developing a Class II vaginally inserted bladder support device for women experiencing stress urinary incontinence.
- eTransplant, developing a secure, patient-centered digital application to modernize communication between kidney transplant patients and their healthcare teams.
- LenSense Inc., developing a non-invasive smart contact lens system for continuous monitoring of intraocular pressure in glaucoma patients.
- mDETECT Inc., developing a liquid biopsy platform for the detection of multiple cancers.
- Octane Innovation Inc., advancing a wearable electromagnetic field device designed to treat chronic pain.
McIlquham added that KEDCO is also in the process of building a wet lab that greener companies can utilize in their early years to help address what he says is not only a big gap in Kingston, but all throughout Ontario.
The lab will operate as a co-working space with companies paying subsidized rent that graduates to market rent over the course of three years.
McIlquham says it will act for a space of incubation which combined with funding opportunities will help companies to advance professionally, and the goal is for the space to continue to welcome new companies.
And given the lack of lab space, he says there will be nomissue finding tenants.
“The plan is for it to kind of get them up, ready, out, and then that next space comes in,” McIlquham said.
“We already have a queue of companies waiting to use this space.”
The lab is set to officially open this March.
