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In order to be eligible for the Start-up Visa Program, you will have to receive support from one of the Designated Organizations, either a Venture Capital Fund (min investment of $200,000), a Angel Investor Group (min investment of $75,000), or a Business Incubator (no min investment).
You’ll need to:
The process to pitch your idea is different for each organization. Each organization has its own requirements.
If you reach an agreement with a Designated Organization, it will send you a Letter of Support. You will need to include this letter when you submit your application to Immigration, Refugees, and Immigration Canada.
You’ll need to:
- contact the Designated Organization to find out how to get its support,
- convince the organization that you have a business idea that is worth supporting, and
- get a Letter of Support from the Designated Organization
The process to pitch your idea is different for each organization. Each organization has its own requirements.
If you reach an agreement with a Designated Organization, it will send you a Letter of Support. You will need to include this letter when you submit your application to Immigration, Refugees, and Immigration Canada.
Designated Venture Capital Funds
You must get one or more of these groups to agree to invest a minimum of $200,000:
- 7 Gate Ventures
- Apex Innovative Investments Ventures
- Arete Pacific Tech Ventures (VCC) Corp
- BCF Ventures
- BDC Venture Capital
- Celtic House Venture Partners
- Extreme Venture Partners LLP
- First Fund
- Golden Venture Partners Fund, LP
- iNovia Capital Inc.
- Intrinsic Venture Capital
- Lumira Ventures
- Invest Nova Scotia
- PRIVEQ Capital Funds
- Real Ventures
- Red Leaf Capital Corp
- Relay Ventures
- ScaleUp Venture Partners, Inc.
- Tangentia Ventures
- Top Renergy Inc.
- Vanedge Capital Limited Partnership
- Version One Ventures
- WhiteHaven Venture
- Westcap Management Ltd.
- Yaletown Venture Partners Inc.
- York Entrepreneurship Development Institute (YEDI) VC Fund
Designated Angel Investor Groups
You must get one or more investors connected to these groups to agree to invest a minimum of $75,000:
Designated Business Incubators
You must be accepted into one of these programs:
- Alacrity Foundation
- Alberta Agriculture and Forestry
- Alberta IoT Association
- Altitude
- Bhive
- Biomedical Commercialization Canada Inc. (operating as Manitoba Technology Accelerator)
- Brilliant Catalyst
- Creative Destruction Lab
- DMZ Ventures
- Empowered Startups Ltd.
- Extreme Innovations
- Genesis Centre
- Highline BETA Inc.
- Invest Nova Scotia
- Innovation Cluster - Peterborough and the Kawarthas
- Innovation Factory
- Interactive Niagara Media Cluster o/a Innovate Niagara
- Invest Ottawa
- Knowledge Park o/a Planet Hatch
- L-SPARK
- LatAm Startups
- Launch Academy - Vancouver
- LaunchPad PEI Inc.
- Millworks Centre for Entrepreneurship
- NEXT Canada
- North Forge East Ltd.
- North Forge Technology Exchange
- Pacific Technology Ventures
- Platform Calgary
- Pycap
- Real Investment Fund III L.P. o/a FounderFuel
- Roseview Global Incubator
- Spark Commercialization and Innovation Centre
- Spring Activator
- The DMZ at Ryerson University
- Think8 Global Institute
- Toronto Business Development Centre (TBDC)
- Treefrog
- TSRV Canada Inc. (operating as Techstars Canada)
- University of Toronto Entrepreneurship Hatchery
- VIATEC
- Waterloo Accelerator Centre
- York Entrepreneurship Development Institute