- Innovation UBC is honoured to support the next wave of entrepreneurs building at UBC. This September, 25 new teams are joining our Venture Founder program, building companies across health, biotechnology, advanced engineering, agriculture, fintech, sustainability, accessibility, and AI.
Venture Founder is Innovation UBC's flagship entrepreneurship program. Over 16 weeks, teams work through venture validation, business model development, and leadership capacity-building to establish viable startup companies. The program connects participants with a roster of 50+ mentors, including experienced entrepreneurs, industry experts, and UBC alumni, who offer personalized guidance throughout the program, helping teams work through challenges and sharpen their strategies.
The program is open to UBC students, faculty, and staff, who generally fall into two groups: researchers and staff developing UBC intellectual property (IP) with commercial potential, and students with an original business idea they want to scale. This fall, participants represent 8 faculties from UBC's Vancouver and Okanagan campuses: Applied Science, Science, Business, Medicine, Forestry & Environmental Stewardship, Arts, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Land and Food Systems.
Applications for Venture Founder Spring 2027 are open. Apply by October 11
Meet the fall 2026 cohort
Stream 1
Stream 1 supports ventures disrupting existing industries or systems, such as software solutions (including AI), IT platform technologies, or new business models. Generally, these ventures have a shorter path to market, with limited regulatory friction and mass consumer (B2C) or business (B2B) adoption.
ASLytics
Improving content accessibility for Deaf community members.
- UBC affiliation: Applied Science | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Japleen Kaur, Mankanwar Singh
AssetReady
Converting field asset information into trusted CMMS data for organizations.
- UBC affiliation: Finance & Operations | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Bryan Archibald, Gilberto De Sousa Andrade
CryoGrip Materials
Developing advanced traction materials for winter pedestrians to reduce slips.
- UBC affiliation: Applied Science | UBC Okanagan
- Team: Samaneh Salkhi, Mohammad Arjmand
Earthen Canvas
Reconnecting children to nature through hands-on earth sculpture building.
- UBC affiliation: Architecture and Landscape Architecture | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Heather Woolley
FinTorch
Bank-agnostic financial dashboard to improve newcomer long-term financial planning.
- UBC affiliation: Science; Business | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Jingjing Zheng, Ruixin Song, Rahul Pyne
Independence by Design
Providing adaptive fashion for seniors to improve confidence and independence.
- UBC affiliation: Applied Science | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Brianna Tsuyuki, Heena Sharma, Aditi Dhawan
JuaIT
Empowering smallholder farmers to de-risk solar irrigation and unlock productivity.
- UBC affiliation: Applied Science | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Noah Ndambuki, Masaku Ndambuki
Nxylon
Designing a renewable black material for customers and designers.
- UBC affiliation: Forestry & Environmental Stewardship | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Kenneth Cheng, Xiaowei Xu, Philip Evans
PARKR Technologies Inc.
Camera-based computer vision for security cameras replacing costly parking sensors.
- UBC affiliation: Applied Science | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Thomas Wood
SensRIM
Measuring wheelchair propulsion for wheelchair users to improve mobility.
- UBC affiliation: Applied Science | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Naghmeh Zaghi
SharedRise
Training general AI without human data, boosting productivity for everyone.
- UBC affiliation: Science | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Benjamin Theo Norman, Ryan Sullivan
Smilix
AI photo-triage software helping clinics flag urgent cavities to reduce repeated explanations.
- UBC affiliation: Applied Science | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Jenny Shi, Juanse Becerra, Matthew Dichupa
V7 Agrilink
Turning notebooks into passports for farms entering the global economy.
- UBC affiliation: Applied Science; Business; Arts | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Makatendeka Chikumbu, Mofe Olagesin, Kuzivakwashe Mutonga, Denzel Hlasela
Stream 2
Stream 2 supports ventures translating deep technical research into practical application. These ventures generally have a longer path to market, due to regulatory approval, clinical trials, or complex systems integration.
Activated Water Engineering
Producing activated water for food processors to reduce chemical treatments.
- UBC affiliation: Land and Food Systems; Chemistry | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Muhammad Yasir, Abul Hossain, Hafiza Ruqiya Tasneem, Anika Singh, Anubhav Pratap-Singh
Aureon Therapeutics
Targeted delivery for cancer therapeutics that enhance patient treatment outcomes and reduce side effects.
- UBC affiliation: Applied Science; Pharmaceutical Sciences; Medicine; Science | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Arash Momeni, Yao Zhang, Harrison Fan
Carapex
We use chitin to create next-generation pharma coatings.
- UBC affiliation: Applied Science; Arts; Economics; Science | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Ryan Parissay, Peter van den Doel, Elizabeth Lim, Aya Abi Farrage, Hashaam Zafar, Kavian Aldavoud
Perennial Diagnostics
Making malaria diagnostics in malaria burdened countries more accessible.
- UBC affiliation: Applied Science | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Joshua Heuchert, Lily Watt, Conner Fransoo
PFAS 3DES
Continuously destroying PFAS for water utilities to reduce community exposure.
- UBC affiliation: Applied Science | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Shahriyar Motahari
Reelign
Providing wrist traction to emergency clinicians to improve fracture reductions.
- UBC affiliation: Applied Science | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Ryan Lo, Eric Song, Gregg Neelin, Faiza Rahman
RBP Therapeutics
Developing small molecule inhibitors as therapies for late-stage cancer patients.
UBC affiliation: Medicine | UBC Vancouver
Team: Xuesen Dong, Qiongqiong Jia, Zechao Huang
Spatial Channel Estimator
Providing advanced field test capability to wireless network engineers that reflect the realities of modern wireless systems and allow propagation-related performance issues to be diagnosed far more quickly and reliably than before.
- UBC affiliation: Applied Science | UBC Vancouver
- Team: David Michelson, Behrad Mahboobi, Nasrin Amiri, Luca Baker, Ali Rastegar
VeriPath
Building self-evolving, evidence-traceable AI for clinicians to accelerate cancer diagnosis.
- UBC affiliation: Applied Science; Medicine | UBC Vancouver
- Team: Zuhua Gao, Xiaoxiao Li, Myeongkyun Kang
Some ventures asked not to be included in this public announcement.
Are you interested in joining the Venture Founder program? Applications for our Spring 2027 cohort are now open until October 11.
