University of Waterloo opens new innovation arena

WATERLOO, Ont. – The University of Waterloo has officially opened the Innovation Arena, a new collaboration space in the heart of Kitchener’s innovation district which will empower businesses, founders and community partners to engage researchers and entrepreneurs in solving local, national and global health challenges.

The Innovation Arena will be the new home of Velocity, the university’s flagship startup incubator. The arena houses enhanced business supports for founders, state-of-the-art product development labs, manufacturing equipment and collaboration spaces.

Located on University of Waterloo’s Health Sciences Campus, the Innovation Arena will help accelerate Waterloo Region’s growing health-tech sector.

The space builds on recent collaborations like the CareNext Coalition – a partnership between local hospitals and the university which is aimed at bringing health-tech innovation directly to hospital bedsides and improve patient experiences.

The arena will also work alongside existing hubs like the Medical Innovation Xchange (MIX) to support the more than 100 health-tech companies already operating in the region to facilitate new ideas from research to commercialization.

“The Innovation Arena is the new home for entrepreneurship at Waterloo and will be a nexus for health innovation,” said Vivek Goel (pictured), president and vice-chancellor of the University of Waterloo. “Building on the momentum from Waterloo startups like Intellijoint Surgical and KA Imaging, and with resources for advanced technology startups and access to partners in the healthcare sector, the facility will accelerate Southwestern Ontario’s drive to become Canada’s epicentre of health innovation and entrepreneurship.”

Velocity’s new home in the Innovation Arena has been designed with early-stage startups top of mind. Moving beyond a singular focus in health tech, it will build on Velocity’s success of supporting founders in deep tech, clean tech, automotive and manufacturing for more than 15 years.

Velocity will build upon its history of launching successful companies and grow its programming with community-based learning and labs that will turn prototypes into products.

“The Innovation Arena will streamline commercialization pathways for businesses, fast-track the delivery of health technologies and drive Canada’s next wave of economic growth,” said Velocity’s executive director Adrien Cote. “As the world of startups undergoes rapid transformation, the Innovation Arena is poised to create tangible social and economic opportunities. Founders are excited, University of Waterloo students and researchers are excited, and the Velocity team is excited about scaling up our support for new talent and ideas getting to market faster.”

The Innovation Arena contains 90,000 square feet of innovation space and includes 20,000 square feet of space dedicated to hardware including chemistry and biology building tools. Partners ranging from hospitals, local businesses, academia, non-profit organizations, and government bodies are welcome to be part of the arena’s journey in the community.

The University of Waterloo and Velocity are proud to acknowledge financial support from the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), the Government of Ontario and the City of Kitchener, to propel our vision of advancing health innovation and entrepreneurship in Canada.

The University is also grateful for the support of philanthropic partners including local entrepreneur and angel investor Mike Stork.