Cultivating Startups

For over four years, Mike Kirkup was the director of Velocity—the startup incubator at the University of Waterloo. It's been a huge addition to the Waterloo startup community since opening in 2008. He stepped down just over a year ago to become CTO at Encircle—a Velocity graduate—and on this week's show looks back at lessons learned from Velocity's growth (and how a huge space for Velocity Garage quickly became too small). I also take a quick look at some new data on Canada's venture capital industry from a BDC report released last week, and catch up on the Canadian government's Innovation Superclusters Initiative (ISI) after attending a information session. Only five superclusters are going to be selected and the front runners seem pretty clear. Is there even any point for anyone else to apply? Press play to listen or subscribe with your favourite podcast app. Links: Velocity Velocity on Twitter (@UWVelocity) Mike Kirkup on Twitter (@mikekirkup) Encircle Velocity Fund Finals (Livestream archive)