British start-ups bring their ideas to Canada

TORONTO – MaRS Discovery District and Innovate UK’s (IUK) Global Incubator Programme have announced the launch of the second cohort for startups focused on health and AI. These seven promising UK companies aimed at improving patient outcomes, enhancing drug discovery, and optimizing precision medicine will participate in the program at the MaRS innovation hub in Toronto.

The program will help these startups explore the potential of overseas markets, like Canada, and find new international partnerships and attract new customers.

“We are tremendously excited to continue our support for these ventures to join our second cohort focused on health and AI,” said Hadeer Abdelhamid (pictured), manager of Cohorts at MaRS. “Health touches every person around the world and we can’t wait to see the opportunities, connections and insights these ventures will gain in Canada to help bring their innovative solutions to scale.”

To successfully scale businesses globally, it’s critical to understand the requirements of different markets and build the necessary partnerships, collaborations, and networks – and IUK’s continued partnership with MaRS will help achieve that. The Global Incubator Programme supports cohorts of up to eight innovative UK SMEs to spend time working with world-leading incubators abroad to accelerate their global growth.

The cohort features a diverse group of startups tackling health challenges through medical tech, health tech, biotech, digital health, and AI & medical diagnostics, addressing issues ranging from medical imaging to drug discovery.

The members of this AI cohort are:

• AINOSTICS – Revolutionizing the treatment and prevention of neurological conditions with AI-enabled diagnostic solutions.
• AMPLY Discovery – Employing next-gen sequencing to digitize life’s diversity for drug discovery.
• Curenetics – Integrating complex data sources to create biomarkers that predict patient responses to treatments.
• Definition Health – Digitizing the entire surgical journey to free up clinical teams and provide personalized patient support.
• iLoF – Using photonics and AI to enhance the drug discovery process with a cloud-based library of optical fingerprints.
• PreciousMD – Innovating cancer care with precision diagnostics using AI imaging.
• Seluna – Developing machine-learning powered diagnostic software for pediatric sleep disorders.

The six-month program includes targeted workshops, advisory support and networking opportunities designed to help refine each participant’s value proposition and pitch. By integrating the UK ventures into the MaRS ecosystem, the cohort will gain valuable insights into Canada’s market dynamics and business potential, offering a comprehensive understanding of North America’s health community.

About MaRS Discovery District
MaRS Discovery District is North America’s largest urban innovation hub. A registered non-profit, MaRS supports high-growth startups and scale-ups tackling key issues in health, cleantech, fintech and other sectors. In addition, MaRS convenes all members of the tech ecosystem to drive breakthrough discoveries, grow the economy and make an impact by solving real problems for real people – in Canada and around the world.

About Innovate UK
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is the UK’s innovation agency. It works to create a better future by inspiring, involving and investing in businesses developing life-changing innovations. Its mission is to help companies to grow through their development and commercialisation of new products, processes and services, supported by an outstanding innovation ecosystem that is agile, inclusive and easy to navigate.