The Lazaridis School of Business and Economics recently announced that they are accepting applications for the Lazaridis Scale-Up Program.
Since the fall of 2016, the Lazaridis Scale-Up Program has been working closely with 10 Canadian technology companies who are looking to scale up and become dominant in their respective industries.
The purpose of the Scale-Up Program is to give support to Canadian companies in three areas that may cause constraints to startup Canadian technology companies. The three areas include access to experience, access to global markets and access to capital.
“The main focus of the program is to help [startups] overcome whatever challenge they’re facing as they are scaling [up],” Sarah Burt, associate director of marketing, Lazaridis Institute for the Management of Technology Enterprises, said.
Last fall, a panel of investors from Canada and beyond worked with the Lazaridis Scale-Up Program to pick 10 Canadian technology companies, evaluating candidates based on their potential to grow globally. On May 25, the Lazaridis School of Business and Economics announced that they are now looking for the next 10 companies to take part in this program.
“What we look for is an astounding team that is shooting for the stars, as we like to say,” Burt said.
Once selected the companies are provided with mentors who put in a maximum of 100 hours over the year-long program.
The program was established alongside the Lazaridis School of Business and Economics with the aim of helping Canadian startup companies become global marketplace competitors
Canada currently has many technology companies in the startup stages, although not as many globally sized technology companies. The purpose of this program is to provide these companies with help in scaling up, with the hopes of establishing more Canadian companies on a global scale.
Last year’s 10 companies have all grown since becoming a part of the Scale-Up Program.
“All [of the 10 companies] are reporting that they made significant changes in the way they do business and those changes have helped them as they continue to grow,” Burt said.
“One company said that they have five times their revenue and all of them credit the scale-up program with helping them make these gains,” Kim Moroney, executive director of the Lazaridis Institute said.
This program has already created many benefits for students at Wilfrid Laurier University who take any classes at the Lazaridis Institute.
Students registered this summer have been given the opportunity to meet with a Waterloo based startup that is a part of the Lazaridis 10, where they will also be given a tour and the opportunity to speak with the founders of the company.
In addition to these perks, the Lazaridis Scale-Up Program will also benefit students with an updated curriculum.
“Students will have access to the cutting edge knowledge of what [it] take[s] to grow Canadian companies.” Moroney said. “So everything that we learn from this program we work back into the curriculum in business, economics and entrepreneurship.”
Applications to the Lazaridis Scale-Up Program will be accepted until June 30, 2017.