CALGARY, Alberta, June 09, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- INVENTURE$ 2022 (Inventures) wraps up its third in-person innovation event. With over two thousand people in attendance over three days and as many as 11 thousand watching online, delegates heard from over 300 speakers in 200 sessions. The conference ran from June 1 – 3, covering seven streams, including:
| Future-casting work | Taming urban jungles |
| Game-changing health | Mission critical moonshots |
| Cultivating ag tech | Navigation to net-zero |
| Redefining capitalism |
Media Announcements that happened during Inventures:
| reciChain | A multi-partner project to transform plastic recycling in Alberta. |
| Ecosystem Development Program | Announcing $9.1 million to 15 projects in Alberta’s emerging technology ecosystem |
| Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network (CAAIN) | Announcing $5 million in funding focused on encouraging the expansion of a national network of smart farms. |
| Corporate Knights | Future 50: fastest-growing green companies in Canada |
Pitch Competitions:
An international startup pitch competition took place during Inventures. Thirty companies pitched their best ideas and innovations to an expert panel hoping to take home one of the $10,000 prizes, free registration to Inventures 2023, and exposure to attendees and potential investors who are looking for the newest ideas and innovation. A team of judges made up of respected venture capitalists, selected the winners. The winners in this year’s startup pitch competition are:
| Pure Life Carbon Inc. | Cultivating Ag-Tech: $10,000 prize | Drishya AI Labs Inc. | Mission-Critical Moonshots: $10,000 prize | |
| Hitch | Future-casting Work: $10,000 prize | Litus Inc. | Navigating to Net Zero: $10,000 prize | |
| Nanostics | Game-changing Health: $10,000 prize | SMRT1 Technologies | Taming Urban Jungles: $10,000 prize |
The Tenet I2C competition is a $100,000 business pitch competition to assist companies working in the area of medical discovery and innovation, transition towards commercialization. The awardees in the 2022 Tenet I2C competition are:
| AgGene | $100,000 prize | Fluidome | $10,000 – Alberta Innovates: Data enabled health transformation prize | |
| Nimble Science | $10,000 – Alberta Innovates: Digital Health prize | Zymedyne Therapeutics | $10,000 – Alberta Innovates: Engineering Solutions for Human and Animal Health prize |
THRIVE SVG Ventures held their demo day and awarded $500 thousand in follow-on investment to two companies:
| Verdi | Sustainability award: $250,000 |
| SpaceAg | Innovation award: $250,000 |
| Lupinta | People’s Choice award |
HerStory 2022, co-sponsored by The 51 and Alberta Innovates, announced the winners of their story-pitch competition:
| Fly and Fetch | Shelvie Fernan, CEO & Co-founder |
| VoxCell Bioinnovation | Dr. Karolina Valente, CEO & CSO |
| Shoelace | Julia Rivard Dexter, CEO & Co-founder |
A student pitch competition also took place during the conference with these three finalists participating in a Student Entrepreneur Showcase:
| Elev | Edmonton, Alberta, Canada |
| Blue.o | Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada |
| Agora Work | Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada |
“Alberta Innovates is pleased to have successfully, and safely, held an in-person event this year. We know that when we meet collectively, we experience creative collisions. Contacts are established, deals are made, and we all leave Inventures having learned something new. We congratulate all the pitch competition winners. And, we can’t wait to see you at Inventures 2023.”
Laura Kilcrease, CEO, Alberta Innovates
Inventures is a global innovation experience hosted by Alberta Innovates to bring together the world’s brightest minds, angel investors, venture capitalists and industry leaders. Launched in 2018, Inventures is the place to discover new technologies, talent, capital, customers and markets.
Join us for INVENTURE$ 2023, May 31 - June 2, 2023 in Calgary Alberta.
Tickets are available for $249 at https://inventurescanada.com/
