Call us hopeful, call us bullish, call us Bluenosers. Reflecting on 5 Years at the Emera ideaHUB

I don’t think Ministers of Economic Development are supposed to be as fun as the one we have here in Nova Scotia. Just yesterday we were the grateful hosts of our Province's team from the department dedicated to enabling growth and productivity. The Minister's announcement of new, expanded multi-year funding for the Emera ideaHUB was celebrated by a supportive crowd full of leaders and friends from this vibrant tech ecosystem here in Halifax.

As the honourable Minister Corkum-Greek spoke, she reflected on a sense of hopefulness for what she saw in our founders, and that it's part of something she is seeing across the Province. What made the visit so fun was the Minister's curiosity in the work of our founders, her interest in how they even came up with the problem worth solving in the first place, and how much she seemed personally invested in ensuring these ventures continue on their journey to commercialization here in NS.

I think I can safely speak for the founders when I say that her visit was both inspiring and motivating. We talk a lot about our deep tech founders and how their purpose-driven work is so necessary to our world, and yet so challenging in terms of the journey to market. Our founders are building physical products for a healthier world, so they aren't phased by the considerable challenges of starting a deep tech venture, whether that's the time it takes to get to prototype, the resources they need to develop and test it, or the funding they need at these earliest stages. But as the Minister mentioned, it can be lonely. And it takes a lot of new skills that are entirely different from the technical brilliance of so many founders who have taken their research out of labs and decided to build commercially-viable solutions.

In our first five years, we've been host to 148 ventures, exceeding our target of 100. Of those ventures, 85% have survived more than a year after they left the HUB. These amazing start-ups have raised upwards of $88.5M in funding over this period, exceeding our target of $75M in five years. And R&D partnerships with Dal in this period have totaled $7.7M. While many ventures are still pre-revenue when they become HUB alumni, the track record of what they're achieving after they leave is strong. Just last year, 60% of Residents and recent alumni had hit pre-seed funding or beyond, and 50% of these ventures were commencing manufacturing pilots - a strong indicator for us, given that deep tech ventures are developing funding strategies that aren't restricted to VC backing, but fit for a range of business models they want to build in this province to be sustainable, successful ventures.?

We are grateful for the support of the Province to help more of these deep tech ventures get to a stage where they have a functional prototype, a stage at which they are only just becoming interesting to both government and private sector funding sources. As we welcome a new cohort this spring to the Emera ideaHUB, with a special focus on biomedical engineering ventures as half of every ideaBUILD program, we also feel hopeful.

The Minister and I are agreed in our view of this small ecosystem being an advantage, because the connections and relationships that help our founders along are truly unique. Someone told me when I arrived in NS from Toronto that pretty much everyone is one degree of separation away, and I have to tell you that - 3 years in - I think it's rather accurate. I believe that leadership is relationship. We are here to foster relationships that enable the leadership we need in this province and region.

I believe we're making the most of the talent inside of Dal in the form of co-ops, Engineering capstone projects, and grad students that are eager to take their concepts from lab to market. Just last year, our ventures hired 24 co-op students from Dal and NSCC, and leveraged a total of 29 capstone projects - the 8-month projects that occur during the final year of an Engineering degree. We also make the most of the talent in our region, from the outside community including newcomers to Canada, experienced businesspeople and NSCC graduates with a concept they're ready to build.

So Minister Corkum-Greek is hopeful and optimistic, and I'm here for it. I like to say that I'm bullish about this tech ecosystem, and what we can do for founders at the HUB, because we are surrounded by amazing people: incredible talent, solid expertise. We want to be the regional HUB for building future-ready leaders and deep tech ventures.

This connects back to the vision that was articulated when Emera Inc. had the leadership to build our facility and start something important, and I'm hopeful that our next five years will bring even more impactful results.

Erin O'Keefe Graham