OCI Market Readiness Program – Ontario Centre of Innovation (OCI)

Receive up to $250,000 in Grant Funding.

The Market Readiness Program supports academic spin-off companies, OCI accelerator (CLA/OCIA) graduates, and SmartStart Seed Fund awardees with Ontario government grants to further their early-stage commercialization and support scalable business growth. The program offsets a portion of costs related to customer creation and company-building activities. The funding helps to reduce the risk of other investment opportunities and helps attract additional private investments.

Funding Amount

Access up to $250,000 in Ontario grants per application.

Eligible Applicants

Ontario SMEs incorporated within the last 5 years, with <$500k (project type 1) or <$1M (project type 2) in VC investment.

Eligible Activities

(1) Customer Creation: Funding to develop a scalable sales processes or (2) Company Building Program: Sustainable business model development activities.

Deadline to Apply

Continuous intake; applicant must have engaged in an OCI-supported accelerator or entrepreneurship activities within the last 3 years for at least 4 months.

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OCI Market Readiness Program

Amount of Funding

Successful applicants may receive the following:

Up to $250,000 in funding support;
Investments may be used for a runway of up to 12 months; and
Funding available is company already has a pre-seed or seed round funding raised.

Amount of Funding from the Canadian Government

OCI Market Readiness Program

Eligible Applicants

Companies must fit the following criteria to be eligible:

Have advanced growth and sales strategy which is able to demonstrate repeatable traction in the market;
Has potential to redefine a market;
Should have a 2-4 year business model; and
Have milestones driving a seed-extension or Series A round in the near future (1-2 years).

Eligible Applicants for Canadian Government Funding

OCI Market Readiness Program

Eligible Activities

Eligible Activities may be:

Customer Creation: Funding to develop a scalable sales processes or,

Company Building Program: Sustainable business model development activities.

Eligible Expenses for Canadian Government Funding

OCI Market Readiness Program

Program Deadline

Continuous intake; applicant must have engaged in an OCI-supported accelerator or entrepreneurship activities within the last 3 years for at least 4 months.