“Acorns don’t become oak trees overnight,” reflects Randy Kelly, the chairman of the John Dobson Foundation. “You have to move as quickly as you can to help innovation grow. Time is critical.” Thanks to a recent $3-million gift from the John Dobson Foundation, the McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship is poised to nurture more entrepreneurial talent than ever before.
The Dobson Centre owes its founding in 1988 to the late John Dobson, BCom’49, a passionate proponent of free enterprise who championed entrepreneurship at a time when encouraging innovators to found startups was a rarity, not a trend. Ari Kiriazidis, the President of the John Dobson Foundation and Chief Financial Officer at Formula Growth, the investment company that John Dobson founded, often tells the story of how initial investors in the Formula Growth Fund invested $10,000 that grew into $12 million over the span of 60 years.
“John was committed to helping Canadian entrepreneurs achieve that kind of exponential growth,” says Kiriazidis.
To date, the Dobson Centre has catalyzed the creation of more than 1,000 startups, with more than 400 still in expansion. With a presence in more than 30 countries, its startups have raised over $770 million in funding and created nearly 6,000 jobs. The Dobson Centre’s branches spread far and wide to form a highly engaged ecosystem of over 10,000 members.
“These numbers point to the real, tangible impact our startups are making in their communities,” says Marie Josée Lamothe, the Academic Director of the Dobson Centre. “The recent gift made by the Dobson Foundation will solidify and amplify our efforts to support them.”
Lamothe points to three major areas of growth that the $3-million gift will support: promoting new partnerships with McGill faculties, scaling existing programs, and constructing a brand-new home for the Centre on McGill’s campus.
Inspiring intrapreneurship
While the Dobson Centre is well-known for its flagship programs like the Dobson Cup and X-1 Accelerator, Lamothe and her staff are working tirelessly to cultivate a mindset of intrapreneurship at McGill by partnering with 10 faculties to accelerate emerging innovations and discoveries.
The Dobson Centre recently forged one of its first major partnerships with NeuroSphere, McGill’s neuroscience innovation accelerator, to create the McGill Neuroscience Innovation & Entrepreneurship Program.
“Our team provides seed funding to researchers to help with the maturation and commercialization of promising neuro innovations,” shares Xavier Linker, a Business Development Advisor at Healthy Brains, Healthy Lives, the umbrella initiative that supports NeuroSphere. “At the same time, we also try to promote innovation within the neuroscience community and encourage trainees and researchers to consider entrepreneurship. That’s where our partnership with the Dobson Centre comes in.”
The McGill Neuroscience Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program, which will take place in the fall of 2020, will offer a crash course on the nuts and bolts of entrepreneurship to students and full-time researchers with ideas for unique medical devices, software apps, and other neuroscience-related innovations.
“We’re combining the scientific expertise of McGill researchers with the Dobson Centre’s expertise in entrepreneurship to offer a program that is specifically tailored to the field,” explains Laura Rivest-Khan, a Program Officer at Healthy Brains, Healthy Lives. “It’s the best of both worlds.”
From Linker’s perspective, NeuroSphere has only begun to tap into the vast resources the Dobson Centre has to offer. “This program is only the first phase,” he expresses. “We envision a broader collaboration in the future, potentially a special X-1 Accelerator for neuroscientists.”
Scaling impact
While investing in new partnerships like the Neuroscience Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program, the Dobson Centre continues to expand its lineup of existing programs. From the Lean Startup to the Dobson Cup to the X-1, the Centre’s programs help guide entrepreneurs through the stages of refining a winning idea, identifying a market opportunity, and accelerating toward investment-readiness.
In 2017, the Dobson Foundation donated $2 million to support the X-1 Accelerator, an intensive 10-week program that focuses on helping late-stage startups cross the finish line.
“As we invest in more viable startups that are relevant and growing, we are witnessing a greater demand for the X-1 Accelerator,” says Lamothe. In the past, the X-1 Accelerator has accepted fewer than 10 startups per year. This year, 20 startups chosen from a competitive pool of 60 applicants participated in the first-ever online X-1 Accelerator program.
“Current events lend a certain expedience to the Dobson Foundation’s renewed investment in programs like the X-1,” reflects Kiriazidis. “Those who take risks will reap the rewards, especially in economically uncertain times, and they will play an indispensable role in economic recovery.”
Participants in the 2020 X-1 Accelerator are keenly aware of the challenges and opportunities that emerge when launching a company during the COVID-19 pandemic. The co-founders of NURA Medical have devised a software program and syringe pump device with significant implications for healthcare workers. Currently, delivering medication to pediatric patients through an IV requires a team of two nurses to manually calculate and deliver the correct dosage by age, sex, and weight.
“Most medication errors are made at this step, so we came up with a way to eliminate human error through automation,” explains Sofia Addab, one of the company’s co-founders. Using NURA Medical’s technology only requires one nurse to administer medication, freeing up more healthcare workers to address other needs at a time when staff resources are stretched thin.
“Our experience at the Dobson Centre – first with the Dobson Cup and now the X-1 Accelerator – has helped us make tremendous strides in driving our product forward,” affirms Georgia Powell, another co-founder of NURA Medical. “Based on the feedback we received, we expanded our target market beyond emergency departments to intensive care units and pediatric acute care units, which will directly translate into better health outcomes for pediatric patients.”
Like the co-founders of NURA Medical, Jonnie Lawson entered the Dobson Cup before joining the X-1 Accelerator this year. He and his co-founder developed the idea for their startup, Interius Farms, while taking a sustainability course at McGill. They realized that Montreal provides an ideal location for vertical farming given its low electricity costs and considerable distance from the markets where it sources most of its produce.
“Canada imports hundreds of thousands of tons of produce from the southwestern U.S. every year, putting those supply chains at risk of disruption from climate change and events like COVID-19,” explains Lawson. “Interius Farms is working to offer a product that will still be viable in 2050.”
Lawson and his co-founder developed a unique vertical farming system that generates greater energy and spatial efficiency than other vertical farms. They expanded into a new facility over the summer, where they are building towers and finishing prototypes before raising seed money to launch their operation and sell produce to local distributors.
“The X-1 Accelerator has helped our team prepare for our first equity raise,” says Lawson. “Our pitch deck looks very different after all the mentorship and feedback we’ve received, and we don’t expect to sweat through the due diligence process.”
Co-founders of Interius Farms Tristan Zeman (left) and Jonnie Lawson (right).
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on supply chains, Lawson’s pitch becomes even more compelling. “We like to say, ‘Buy local, buy Canadian,’” he shares. “With the support of the Dobson Centre, we’re close to creating a business model for food growth that improves economic resilience and contributes to job creation in Canada in a season when many jobs are disappearing.”
As Lamothe and her team at the Dobson Centre support startups like NURA Medical and Interius Farms, they express appreciation for the timeliness of the Dobson Foundation’s gift. “The extra support will help more startups adapt quickly to compete in a rapidly changing environment,” affirms Lamothe. “Entrepreneurs will play a significant role in restarting the post-COVID-19 economy.”
Creating space for connection
Despite its successful growth trajectory, the Dobson Centre has relied on renting space in scattered locations in the absence of a suitable facility to house its activities in one place. To remedy the situation, a portion of the Dobson Foundation’s $3-million gift will fund the construction of a state-of-the-art facility within McGill’s Samuel Bronfman Building on Sherbrooke Street in downtown Montreal.
“We are envisioning a hub where startups will be able to network and work alongside like-minded people in a prime, high-traffic location,” says Lamothe.
Throughout its history, the Dobson Foundation has preferred to invest directly in ideas, not physical structures. “We made an exception when it came to funding a building for the Dobson Centre,” says Randy Kelly, “because we had an opportunity to create a space that brings together everyone with an entrepreneurial spirit at McGill.”
He and Kiriazidis point to the power of proximity in sparking innovative ideas. “The fewer barriers to interaction, the more creative people can be,” reflects Kiriazidis. “You need people from different faculties, from different disciplines, hanging around the water cooler together.”
Through supporting the Dobson Centre’s programs and creating a permanent home for them, the Dobson Foundation aims to advance John Dobson’s longstanding vision for the Centre: planting seeds of innovation.
“We’re looking forward to watching what grows out of our investment,” Kiriazidis concludes. “When you create a space for entrepreneurs to thrive, there’s no limit to what they can achieve.”