Founders to Watch

Alwar Pillai, Fable (AI/Accessibility – Toronto, ON)

Fable helps enterprises build accessible digital products by connecting teams with assistive-technology users and AI-enabled testing tools. With household-name customers and a fast-growing tester community, Fable compresses accessibility cycles from weeks to days and improves usability for millions of end users.

Charles Onu, Ubenwa Health (AI/Health-tech – Montreal, QC)

Ubenwa Health analyzes infant cries using machine learning to help clinicians screen for respiratory distress and neurological issues via smartphone—offering low-cost, non-invasive triage that can reach beyond major hospitals. The company collaborates with leading Canadian AI researchers and pediatric centers to validate its approach and advance regulatory pathways.

Edward Chiang, Moment Energy (Green energy storage – Port Coquitlam, BC)

Moment Energy repurposes retired EV batteries into safe, reliable storage for buildings and microgrids—cutting energy costs and e-waste. The company secured an OEM partnership with Nissan to give LEAF batteries a second life and has deployed systems that help customers shave demand charges and back up critical loads.

Dr. Pouria Ataie, CarbiCrete (Green building/Climate-tech – Lachine, QC)

CarbiCrete replaces cement with a steel-slag binder and cures concrete with captured CO2, producing carbon-negative blocks that meet strength specs while permanently storing emissions. Early industrial production with precast partners in Quebec demonstrates commercial readiness and an on-ramp to large-scale decarbonization of construction materials.

Why This Matters

This cohort shows how Canada’s strengths—world-class AI institutes, deep industrial know-how, and immigrant-driven ambition—translate into practical wins: accessibility platforms adopted by global brands, second-life battery storage connected to the grid, and climate-tech that can decarbonize heavy industry. Their traction—OEM partnerships, clinical collaborations, and pilot production—points to solutions built for scale, not just headlines.

Systemic Barriers—and Supports That Move the Needle

Barriers that persist

• Capital gaps: Founders of color often raise less capital and get it later, slowing hiring and commercialization.
• Procurement friction: Hospital, utility, and government sales demand lengthy validation cycles that can outlast startup runway.
• Network concentration: Pilots and introductions remain clustered in a few corridors and founders outside Ontario hubs face fewer warm connections.

What helps

• Non-dilutive funding for R&D and pilots: NRC IRAP and other funding programs are catalytic for early technical milestones and demonstrations.
• AI anchors and talent pipelines: Mila, Vector, and Amii connect startups to researchers, compute, and clinical/industry partners.
• Supplier diversity and challenge programs: Certifications and innovation clusters open procurement pathways and speed time-to-first-contract, such as CAMSC and Global Innovation Clusters.

If you build or buy technology, pilot these solutions in your organization and share the outcomes. If you invest, back these founders with patient capital and multi-market introductions beyond Ontario. If you shape policy, expand outcome-based procurement and scale proven non-dilutive programs so Canada’s most promising innovations can move from pilots to widespread impact.

Keep an eye on this cohort—their execution today signals a more inclusive, healthier, and cleaner Canadian economy tomorrow.