Deadline: 27-May-22
The City of Toronto is seeking applications for its Business Incubation & Commercialization Grant Program to provide financial support to incubators and entrepreneurship organizations interested in creating business formation, innovation, and job creation in Toronto and who provide robust programming to nascent entrepreneurs, businesses, and start-ups.
This program is designed to support not-for-profit entrepreneurship, incubation, and accelerator activities whose primary goals are to create businesses and jobs, encourage the development of new ideas, and work towards organizational efficiency, sustainability and while utilizing industry best practices.
This program does not provide grants to individual for-profit businesses, but instead is aimed at organizations that offer entrepreneurship and incubation or acceleration programming to entrepreneurs.
Objective
- The Business Incubation and Commercialization Grant Program supports the development of entrepreneurship and incubation activity in a manner that is fully accessible, transparent, accountable, and aligned with the City of Toronto’s goals of access, equity, and inclusion.
Funding Information
- There are two streams within the program offering funding:
- Multi-Year Operating (3-year cycle)
- Up to 20% of eligible expenses, to a maximum of $100,000, for applicants in the multi-year operating stream. Grants will be dispensed in two parts: 75% provided upfront and 25% held back until completion.
- Programs and Events
- Up to 50% of eligible expenses, to a maximum of $20,000, for programs. Program grants will be dispensed in two parts: 75% provided upfront and 25% held back until completion; or
- Up to 50% of eligible expenses, to a maximum of $10,000, for events. Event grants will be dispensed in a one-time payment.
- Multi-Year Operating (3-year cycle)
- Annual operating, project, event, or development funding received in one year does not guarantee funding in subsequent years.
Requirements
- Multi-Year Operating Stream Requirements
- Applicant organizations must meet the following to be eligible for Multi-year Operating Stream:
- Have been incorporated for three years or more and has paid staff.
- Have programming tailored specifically to company formation and job creation.
- Demonstrate a history of successful entrepreneurship and robust incubation or accelerator programming for three years or more.
- Be able to provide its most recent audited financial statements demonstrating revenues between $100,000 to $1 million.
- Applicant organizations must meet the following to be eligible for Multi-year Operating Stream:
- Programs and Events Stream Requirements
- Applicant organizations must meet the following to be eligible for the Programs and Events Stream:
- Have been incorporated for at least two years.
- Programming can cover a range of entrepreneurship and innovation development including pre-incubation, incubation, and accelerator activities, as well as one-time or a series of networking events with targeted sectoral or demographical reach and impact.
- Demonstrate a history of successful entrepreneurship, campus entrepreneurship, or social enterprise programming.
- Be able to provide a comprehensive budget for review with its application, demonstrating revenue of less than $100,000 for Programs or $50,000 for Events.
- Applicant organizations must meet the following to be eligible for the Programs and Events Stream:
Eligibility Criteria
- The Business Incubation and Commercialization Grant Program is available to the following types of not-for-profit organizations that provide incubation-type programming to entrepreneurs:
- Pre-Incubator: an organization that offers programming such as development of client’s business idea. Services typically include: business advisory support, mentoring, networking, and market research.
- Incubator: an organization that adds programming such as implementation of a business idea into actual operation while providing various supports throughout the process, such as business advisory support, office or studio space, shared industrial/commercial equipment, product/prototype development, mentoring, networking and market research.
- Accelerator: an organization that focuses on rapid growth through the provision of strategic financing and market readiness strategies. Services typically include financing or investment, business advisory support, mentoring and office or studio space.
- Education Institution: an organization such post-secondary institution that includes entrepreneurship and business support as part of its curriculum and programming.
- Industry Association: an organization that represents a certain business sector and has a focus on entrepreneurship and sector development.
- To be eligible for funding, not-for-profit organizations must also demonstrate:
- Programming that is Toronto-centric and support Toronto-based entrepreneurs and startups.
Ineligibility Criteria
- Individual businesses are ineligible to apply for or participate in the program.
- Eligible organizations cannot:
- Be taking any equity from the start-ups it supports.
- Apply for or participate in more than one stream of funding per year, or
- Apply for new or additional grants if the applicant is receiving funds through a multi-year agreement under the previous program framework, until such time that their existing funding agreement has ended.
For more information, visit https://www.toronto.ca/business-economy/business-operation-growth/business-incentives/business-incubation-commercialization-grant-program/