What’s young, hip, attracting a lot of investor attention, and located right in the middle of all the action?
Yup – it’s the Brampton Innovation District.
Located in the fastest-growing city in the country, the Brampton Innovation District is emerging as the next big nexus of groundbreaking start-ups in Canada. The city is already startup-central, with over 275 tech companies calling it home, but this is just the beginning. The local government is pulling out all the stops to lay down solid building blocks that help it live up to its purpose of creating jobs of tomorrow.
What is the Brampton Innovation District?
The Brampton Innovation District (BID) is an ecosystem of resources being developed to support new tech creation. It aims to provide entrepreneurs and new business owners at any stage of their business assistance in the form of infrastructure, education, training, and re-skilling, across all sectors.
BID already has at least 7 start-up incubators and accelerators:
1. Brampton Entrepreneur Centre (BEC)
2. RIC (Research Innovation Commercialization)
3. Founder Institute – World’s Premier Idea-Stage Accelerator
4. Ryerson Venture Zone (RVZ)– Start-up pre-seed incubator led by Ryerson University
5. Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst Headquarters
6. Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst Cyber Range and Accelerator
7. Sheridan EDGE Programming Led by Sheridan College
4 top universities:
Why Brampton Innovation District is a fantastic launchpad for tech start-ups
1. Location, location, location:
Brampton is the perfect location for B2B and B2C businesses. Situated at the centre of the Toronto-Waterloo corridor, the largest tech cluster in the world after Silicon Valley. Yes – bigger than Boston, New York or Seattle! The area hosts more than 15,000 tech companies and 5,000+ startups. Brampton gets your start-up access to prominent global corporations such as Google and SAP, alongside fast-growing scale-ups like Faire, ApplyBoard, and Arctic Wolf.
Brampton is connected to an extensive network of 7 major highways by road, offering access to over 158 million consumers within a day’s drive. Closest to Canada’s largest airport, Pearson International, Brampton is a hub for over 47 million passengers annually, connecting to 180 destinations worldwide. Port of Toronto’s link to the St. Lawrence Seaway facilitates global and domestic markets’ transportation, distribution, storage, and containerization. And it also houses CN, Canada’s largest intermodal railway terminal, handling more than 58% of North American business.
Recently, the Brampton GO station announced a name change to ‘Brampton Innovation District GO’, further enhancing Brampton’s status as a premier destination for innovation and technology.
2. Futureproof talent pipeline
Brampton’s talent pool for businesses to tap into is basically – endless. With the lowest average age of 36 in Canada, the city teems with youthful energy and fresh minds ready to join the workforce. Brampton has direct access to a talent pool of 4.3 million people across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) because of its strategic location on the Toronto-Waterloo corridor. Adding to its allure, the city is surrounded by at least 21 post-secondary schools within an hour’s drive, which means over 400,000 students at any given time! To add to that, Brampton is welcoming 14000 new residents every single year!
3. An epicentre for cybersecurity
The Brampton Innovation District is particularly a haven for cybersecurity companies because of the Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst – the national centre for cybersecurity innovation and collaboration being located here. They even have Canada’s first-ever tech accelerator program supporting cybersecurity scale-ups!
The global cybersecurity market is set to reach a massive US$248.6 billion by 2023, with Canada ranking 4th globally for cybersecurity venture capital deals, so if you’re a cyber-security start-up – it just can’t get any better than BID.
4. An international destination
Brampton Innovation District has quickly gained recognition across many countries as a hotspot to soft-land and build global businesses. Recently, the Mayor of Brampton, Patrick Brown, visited Pakistan (with our BHive delegation!) and found a lot of investment interest from corporations belonging to cybersecurity, manufacturing, and MedTech to utilize the Brampton Innovation District as a base to further their growth. Even the investment mission to Ireland and Northern Ireland opened up fruitful conversations about avenues in digital health transformation, specifically in artificial intelligence, MedTech manufacturing, R&D, and clinical trials in Brampton.
Brampton Innovation District takes great pride in their start-ups; they consistently show their commitment towards them by ensuring all roads, windows, doors – to all possible opportunities are wide open. BID took 24 start-ups to the Collision 2023 – one of North America’s biggest tech conferences – and presented them as shining examples to investors, peers, and industry head honchos worldwide at a dedicated Brampton Innovation District Startup Island.
The concentration of investment and funding programs
The Canadian government, on a federal and provincial level, has various funding programs, tax credits, subsidies, grants, and more available to start-ups located in Brampton. Here are some that apply to Brampton’s key industries:
Advanced Manufacturing
F&B Manufacturing
Health & Life Sciences
Innovation & Technology
Recently this year, Angel Investors Ontario (AIO) and Altitude Accelerator also launched Brampton Angels (at an event in the BHive office!), a new angel group created solely with the purpose of developing local tech startups. Brampton Angels are looking to invest in early-stage technology or tech-enabled companies in industries such as ICT, healthcare, energy and utilities, and consumer products and services. Their typical investments range from CA $25,000 to CA $100,000 and above.,
The Brampton Innovation District’s enticing blend makes it a dream destination for tech start-ups to thrive, innovate, and revolutionize industries! Would you like a warm welcome in Brampton and conquer global markets from here?
We are BHive, a startup incubator located in Brampton, Ontario. We offer international startups the tools, resources, and space to establish – and quickly scale – their businesses in Canada and North America. To apply to our Global Entrepreneur Incubation Program, click here!
