We are excited to invite you to Techstars Toronto's sixth Demo Day Showcase! Join us on **June 29th at 1:00 PM EST** to meet the 12 companies graduating from the 2022 Spring cohort.

This Demo Day Showcase will give the investor community a look at 12 companies poised to disrupt industries and change the world through their technology. With our incredible network of mentors, investors, and partners across Canada already in place, Techstars Toronto sets out to bring the world’s best to Canada.

This global class spans not only Canada but Africa, Pakistan, and India. Investors take note, these companies mean business. Their traction and team size are seldom seen at this early stage, and their valuations are starting to soar, and surpassing a combined $120M USD already, which we believe is just the start.

## **Learn more about each of our 12 companies before they present:**

[Blackcopper](https://blackcopper.io/) - Blackcopper is a neo bank that empowers nano businesses, solopreneurs and freelancers with easy and fast access to financial services through proprietary credit assessment tools.

[Blawesome](https://www.blawesome.life/) - Helping Wellness Creators grow, manage and monetize their communities using practice management system tools and social tokens

[Bongalow](https://www.bongalow.com/) - Making mortgages more accessible for Africans by empowering banks and real estate agents with modern mortgage infrastrusture

[Captain.ai](https://www.captain.ai/) - On demand delivery software enabling restaurants to automate their in house delivery

[Emergency Response Africa](https://emergencyresponseafrica.com/) - Delivering emergency care in minutes by connecting anyone that needs help with the largest network of first responders, emergency vehicles, and hospitals

[Gigmile](https://www.gigmile.com/) - Building the services and financial infrastructure for the gig economy in Africa

[Glade](https://www.glade.ng/) - A fintech startup that enables SME's to have a global reach through offering cross border payments and multi-currency accounts

[mycover.ai](http://mycover.ai/) - Revolutionizing the way Africans experience insurance by embedding policies into their favorite products and services, all while simplifying claims processes

[Social Champ](https://www.socialchamp.io/) - The next generation’s simplest social media management tool, helping users to publish, analyze content, and engage with their audience - all from one place!

[StartGlobal](https://startglobal.co/) - Start and manage your global business, from anywhere

[Swag Kicks](https://www.swag-kicks.com/) - The go- to circular fashion solution loved by millennials and Gen Z's in emerging markets

[TruQ](https://www.mytruq.com/) - Automating and optomizing short haul logistics arcoss Africa

Alisha Golden

Gaby Rudd

Sunil Sharma

Techstars Toronto Demo Day 2022

Techstars is an operational investor supporting you on your entrepreneurial journey from idea to building the most successful business possible! Built and run by entrepreneurs themselves, we understand the complexities of putting your ideas into action and scaling them.

Global

Techstars

Please join us for our 6th Techstars Toronto Demo Day and Come See Unicorns Take Flight!

# **Blawesome Highlights:**

❇️  Bootstrapped mobile and webapp product
🧘 410 Wellness Creators
💖 2M followers
🌴 Partnership with wellness travel brand 60k users
📈 Growing 46% month over month
🤓 Technical founder with an exit
⭐ Techstars ‘22

# **About Blawesome**

[Blawesome](https://www.blawesome.life/) makes it simple for Wellness Creators (yoga teachers, health coaches etc.) to sell courses,
memberships, grow, manage and monetize their communities. Using the utility of tokens and NFTs Blawesome helps Wellness Creators and their communities own the spaces they use to learn, and grow together.

Founder and CEO [Jennifer Kruidbos](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferkruidbos/) discovered the need for Blawesome while running her corporate wellness business (clients include: TELUS, Canadian Government, Sun Life Insurance) serving thousands of people in schools, hospitals, and offices. Clients and staff complained about the lack of resources, connection to creators, experts and the toxic platforms they were often using to search for these things.

**Blawesome is the solution to this problem.**

Jennifer Kruidbos

Christopher MacDonald

Justine Romanoff

Jenieri Cyrus

Prachi Chavda

Nikki Lin

Tiffany Joy Basse

Kirk Brown

Ray Wu

Jennifer Kruidbos // Nft’s, Navigating Buffering And Doing The Work

Ever wonder what it would take to give life to your Earth-changing idea? 

The future of wellness 3.0 [Hosted by AWS]

Heart Centered Leadership Takes Front And Centre

What if Social Media was Safe

Blawesome Founder Jennifer Kruidbos: Wellness Web3 Creators & Communities

Blawesome

We reimagine the way the world — and the cars that do the moving — moves for the better. In addition to giving cars a way to get from point A to point B, we're working to bring the future closer with car-driving-car technology and helping other cars order food, get gas, and directions affordably.

Opeyemi Awoyemi

Miriam Dong

JOHNSON .

Aliyu Abdulhameed

Paul Pluschkell

Kai Graham

Adam Meghji

Lala Elizondo

Ali Moiz

Nic Mahaney

Courtney Dailey

Guber

TruQ is a platform leveraging technology to automate and optimize short-haul logistics for B2B e-commerce businesses, merchants, and individuals, connecting them in real-time to the closest vehicles to enable trusted, trackable, affordable shipments aside some other value added services.

Back in July 2019, a friend (who is now a co-founder at truQ) had bought a wardrobe in one part of Lagos and we struggled for 3 days to find a vehicle to help her move the item to another part of Lagos where she lives. After 6 months of market research and customer survey we started truQ in January 2020, first off spreadsheet and phone calls and then to a web app before we launched our current apps accessible via web and mobile in June 2021.

Though we started out as a B2B and B2C company, learnings over the past 23 months of operation have opened our eyes to where the priority should lie, B2B. The segments currently command about 65% of our revenue and 90% of our trips with Tradedepot, Marketforce, Omnibiz and Betastore as our biggest customers, while Sabi, Supplias, Alerzo and a few others are actively in our pipeline.

We are a fully digital and asset light business, companies and individuals register their vehicle on truQ to access our ever growing demand pull, their identity, vehicle condition and regulatory standing are well vetted before training and approval to start accepting move requests on truQ.

We currently make money taking 20% commission on trips but activating SaaS revenue buy Q4 2022 when we roll out our subscription based services, this is aside future revenue channels like vehicle financing and others.

We are growing and growing fast, 222 trips and $11k+ in 2020 to 2980 trips and about $140k in 2021, and very much on track to hit 10X of 2021 in 2022, as we journey towards $100m ARR and market presence in 8 African countries by 2025 powering seamless and efficient logistics for the biggest retail distribution companies across the continent.


If you understand the logistics space in Africa and everywhere else, the platform business model or scaling B2B Businesses, we would love to meet you. We are on a mission to change how businesses experience third party logistics across forever and we would love to have you in our corner through it all.

Williams Fatayo

Foluso Ojo

Steven Waidelich

Emmanuel Aiyede

Jerry Yang

Shimite Obialo

george landegger

Charlene Chen

Rohan Goswami

Yinka Osoba

Ayanna Kerrison

On-demand logistics startup truQ sees quick uptake since Lagos launch

How truQ Helps Businesses

truQ launches user app to help facilitate more seamless deliveries across Lagos

TruQ

# **What We Do 👟**

Swag Kicks is the sustainable fashion platform for Millenials and Gen-Zs in the emerging markets.

We are bringing the best of global sneaker and clothing culture to emerging markets by sourcing preloved authentic fashion from across the world, disinfecting and selling them online for a fraction of the price of their brand-new counterparts.

Swag Kicks is present in Pakistan and UAE. In the next 18 months, we want to enter Africa, primarily Nigeria and Ghana.

Along with the retail business, we are working on a SaaS offering of our proprietary tech, ThriftOps. It's a tool for optimizing processes for 1/1 inventory circular-fashion business models. We're aiming to make it the OS for reselling vintage & thrift around the globe.

Nofal Khan

HAMZA ABID

Darmante Gomez

Robel C

Sardar Ahmed Durrani

Jacinta Kanakaratnam

Swag Kicks

MyCover.ai is an open insurance API built to deepen insurance penetration across Africa. 

We are transforming the way Africans utilize and experience insurance by embedding insurance products  into their favourite products and services and by streamlining the claims process for insurance companies through our AI-Powered claims management solution.

Debo Banjo

Alexander Igwe-Ifendu

Fred Ebho

Henry Ukoha

Brenda Silva

De'Havia Stewart

Carlos Perez Pla

ade molajo

Oraib Kazimi

Rasheed Olaoluwa

Sean McCroskey

MyCover.ai

Founded in 2020, StartGlobal is a technology startup enabling early-stage entrepreneurs to digitally launch and manage a US business, from anywhere in the world. Streamlining business formation, tax ID and bank accounts, accounting and compliance, and business management need - all in one platform.

Sanjay Nediyara

Deepak Mishra

Paul Waites

Daniel Merja

Wynn Wang

Zack Kahn

Oleksiy Ignatyev

Feven Solomon

Idan Levy

Kola Oyeneyin

Alex Carvalho

Mohsen Khalkhali

Gyan Kapur

Jason Tahir

Ben Narasin

Triet Nguyen

Saba Karim

Why the decision not to commit suicide was the best decision of my life?

In Early-Stage Investing, Diversity Brought Us Together

Bad attitude is the only disability in life

StartGlobal

The Gig Economy is a critical part of the future of work in Africa and one of the fastest-growing segments within the informal sector accounting for 80% of jobs. However, the Gig economy in Africa is being held back!

In the last decade, Africa has seen the launch of several digital platforms like Uber Eats, Jumia and Bolt. Upon the launch of these platforms, they expect to record exciting traction as we often see in Europe and America but this is hampered by key challenges. One of these challenges is the very limited supply of gig workers required to fulfil the demand.

Gigmile is building the services and financial infrastructure for mobility-based gig workers in Africa

We are democratising access to opportunities in Africa’s rising Gig Economy by enabling mobility-based gig workers with access to productive assets (motorcycles, smartphones etc), working capital and other services they require to succeed.

Think of us as the Grameen Bank for Mobility Based Entrepreneurs across Africa.

Kayode Adeyinka

Samuel Esiri

Darloo Ogumba

Benedikt Langer

Techstars Demo Day Pitch

Gigmile

Glade was founded in 2020, transforming the way businesses perform cross-border transactions, move and manage money globally. all on one, user-friendly platform.

Think of us as Revolut but built for businesses in Africa to help them have a global reach.

We offer a global banking experience for local businesses in Africa to perform transactions across different markets in the world.

Temitope Hundeyin

Liyi Victor

Blake Yaccino

Majid Mike Alladina

GladePay’s Digital Bank Targets African Micro-SMEs

GladePay, payment and financial technology infrastructure in Nigeria

Nigerian fintech startup GladePay launched to help merchants get paid

Glade

Captain is a B2B SAAS that gives restaurants technology to automate and optimize their in-house deliveries.

Their customers include the largest delivery chain in Canada, Pizza Pizza, and channel partners include POS platform, Revel.

Captain's founding team built one of the first on-demand, same-hour delivery, food, grocery, and retail marketplaces in the UK.

Ryan Perera

Ingmar Keleras

Dihan Algama

ANDY ALLIN

Geoff Donaker

Peter Hui

James Mayer

Justin Dunnion

Jeffrey Kazmucha

Gaelen Hendrickson

Captain

Emergency Response Africa is transforming emergency response in Africa by building the largest network of first responders, emergency vehicles and hospitals and connecting them to those who need help in minutes. We save lives and help keep businesses and communities safe.

Folake Owodunni

Maame Poku

Yunus Ibrahim

Emergency Response Africa

**The Problem** 

•Lack of digitization in Africa’s home financing value chain has made homeownership
inaccessible for millions of African consumers.  

•Lack of digitization limits banks from reaching more customers and prolongs their
origination process. The same remains for mortgage brokers who are digitally disconnected from these same lenders, limiting their ability to close more transaction at a pace more
conducive to their independent agent businesses. 

**The Solution** 

•Bongalow embeds its mortgage platform across key partners, including traditional banks,
neo banks, and real estate agents and brokers, enabling these key gatekeepers to instantly offer a digitized mortgage origination and brokerage solution to end users.

**Market Opportunity (Nigeria Only)** 

•Mortgage-to-GDP ratio of <1% vs. >52% in the US 

•220 million current population base expected to reach >400 million in 2050 

•Launch market of Lagos, Nigeria represents a $175 billion mortgage origination market
opportunity 

**Pricing Model** 

•For Banks: Up to 1% of mortgage value successful originated + annual service fee of up $24,000

•For Agents: Up to 3% of the mortgage value successfully brokered  

**Sales Pipeline**

•Banks: 2 signed / Will reach 8 million banking customers once deployed / In advanced discussions with 2 other banks


•Agents: 300+ agents onboarded since launching in June 2022


•Current slaes pipeline is worth over $30 million in ARR

Kelechi Nwokocha

Abdulrahman Atta

Sam Haruna

Calvin Rupango

Adedayo Ojo

Nigeria's Leading Pension Company Backs Bongalow 

Africa's Leading Seed-stage Fund Backs Bongalow

Bongalow Rebrands and Launches Online Mortgage Platform

Bongalow

Blackcopper started in 2020 after identifying that the financing GAP for nano-businesses was due to the inability of existing players to profile nano-business owners for loans. Blackcopper then built an algorithm that uses alternate data through machine learning models to create profiles for nano-businesses that will enable them to get access to working capital for their business

Muyiwa Faulkner

AZEEZ OLUWAFEMI

Anes R

Benjamin Barrows

Blackcopper launches BC Health

Blackcopper

Social Champ is a social media management solution aggregating all of the tools a business needs to run and scale multiple accounts and channels. Social Champs is rich with embedded growth hacking features, team collaboration, performance analytics, audience direct messaging, empowering users from all experience levels - from novice to expert - to execute a top-performing social media strategy.

Sameer Ahmed Khan

Shakir Ghani

Zohaib Shakir

This social media scheduling app is getting rave reviews from Guy Kawasaki

BrandingInAsia: Pakistan-based Social Sharing App takes aim at Buffer and Hootsuite

Social Champ Bags Another Victory at APICTA Awards 

Behind every successful start-up, there are failures. This is one Pakistani entrepreneur's story

TechJuice: Featured in Pakistan’s 25 High Achievers Under 25 years of Age (2015)

Onwards & Upwards: In conversation with Sameer Ahmed Khan, Co-Founder & CEO Social Champ

Social Champ, Inc