Guelph company looks to help new agriculture and agri-food ventures

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

by SUSAN MANN

Emerging agricultural and agi-food companies can tap into funding from a corporation geared to helping them commercialize their technologies.

Bioenterprise Corporation, of Guelph, has recently opened its call for applications, says Italo Cerra, Bioenterprise vice president, finance. All work has to be completed by December 2018, Cerra says, and there will be another call for applications in April.

A Tuesday announcement of $4.84 million from the federal FedDev Ontario’s Investing in Business Innovation initiative follows on the heels of the call for applications.

The funding will enable Bioenterprise to assist start-up companies and early-stage innovator businesses in southern Ontario to commercialize their product or service, a federal news release says.

Companies targeted are in the agriculture and agri-food, sustainable and environmental, advanced manufacturing and social innovation industries.

Bioenterprise Corporation is a non-profit company founded in 2002 with core funding from the federal and provincial governments. Innovation Guelph is working with Bioenterprise to deliver the program.

Cerra says about $3.3 million of the federal government funding is earmarked to help companies with commercializing products or services, while the remaining $1.54 million will go to providing companies with support services, such as mentoring, market research, introduction to investors and assessment of whether the product or service produced fits the market the company is aiming to supply.

Fifty to 70 per cent of the $3.3 million will go to help agricultural and agri-food emerging companies, he notes.

Cerra says Bioenterprise funding covers 50 per cent of a qualifying project’s costs. The funding is capped at $30,000.

Companies can also get up to $10,000 to help pay for outside consultants or support services, such as coaching and mentoring, from Bioenterprise staff members.

“Most of the clients are start-ups or very early stage companies so they do not have a team of qualified people in their organization because they don’t have the money,” he says. “What we do is we augment their team and we help them with some of the work they have to do, and that’s the mentoring and coaching,” he notes.

The government’s release says the project will help 110 early-stage companies, create 230 full-time jobs and maintain 500 jobs. BF