Ready 4 Market fund

This program supports start-up businesses in Ontario with ambitions to scale the business through the Customer Creation and Company Building stages of the Customer Development Model. The business must market a product or service based on research from an Ontario-based academic institution.

Ontario Centre of Innovation

Overview of the Ready 4 Market fund program:

Ready 4 Market (R4M) is Ontario’s leading pre-seed investment fund. Through the fund, OCI co-invests with angel and other investors in early-stage Ontario-based start-ups with competitive IP commercializing transformative technologies to support their growth into scalable businesses. This investment de-risks the opportunity, helps the start-up become investor and customer ready, and attracts private sector co-investment and follow-on investment.

Benefits of the Ready 4 Market fund program:

Ready 4 Market supports Ontario-based early-stage technology companies that are raising pre-seed and seed investment rounds. Investments are up to $250,000 and total round sizes range from $500,000 to $2 million. R4M is a competitive co-investment fund, with hundreds of companies considered for funding closing around 20 investments each year. Investment criteria includes a minimum addressable market size of $100M, and private sector co-investment is required. Companies undergo a rigorous due diligence and selection process, and are evaluated on long-term competitiveness, strong IP, unique value proposition, and capacity to scale. To date, OCI has invested in 200+ companies.

Eligibility criteria of the Ready 4 Market fund program:

BEST SUITED FOR:
Intellectual Property from an Ontario-based academic institution or part of a Campus Incubator/accelerator at Academic Institutes (Companies with their team /IP origins at a university (university spin-out), college or research hospital are also eligible, even if not campus affiliated.)
Incorporated for no more than five years (Ontario or Canadian for-profit incorporation) and have principal operations in Ontario.
Companies that have raised less than $1 million in third-party capital are eligible for their first R4M investment.
OCI supports early-stage companies that are raising pre-seed and seed investments (total round sizes range from $500,000 to $2 million).
SECTORS
Agnostic across sectors* including (but not limited to) IT, Robotics, AI, Cleantech, and Advanced Manufacturing with a minimum addressable
Market size of $100M.
GEOGRAPHY
Companies that are headquartered and predominantly located
Within the Province of Ontario. The current company headcount must be
>50% located in Ontario (not projected).
Early-stage technology companies that are close to commercialization. Ideally, the product has been built, and there is some early market traction.