TBDC To Help Indian Startups, Entrepreneurs Globalise Businesses In Canada

Canadian accelerator and incubator Toronto Business Development Centre (TBDC) has announced plans to help Indian startups and micro, small and medium-sized (MSMEs) globalise their businesses. 

To enable this, TBDC will be nominating 100-300 India-based startups to the Canadian government by 2025 via its Land and Expand program, which targets mature startups, and Soft Landing programs, which focuses on early-stage startups, Vikram Khurana, TBDC chairman told Inc42.

Additionally, to promote entrepreneurship and innovation in Ontario province, TBDC has partnered with the Ontario government under  a policy Entrepreneur Success Initiative (ESI) and started a campaign called Move for More.

Speaking about the above initiatives, Khurana said, “TBDC’s new initiative OINP ESI will promote entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic growth in India and Canada. Whereas, the Move for More campaign will enable immigrant entrepreneurs to buy or start businesses outside the Greater Toronto Area.” 

Meanwhile, to support the Indian startup ecosystem, TBDC has partnered with various Indian ecosystem partners including Startup India, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Chamber of Commerce, T-Hub and NASSCOM to date.

TBDC predominantly offers a six-month-long incubation program for startups in three distinct phases. In the first phase, TBDC provides a three-month pre-arrival virtual training to Indian startups and entrepreneurs giving them a comprehensive understanding of the Canadian business market.

Thereafter, the subsequent three months of the incubation program happen in a classroom-style setting, where startups are equipped with essential skills and knowledge to kick start their ventures. Further, in the last three months, startups will have one-to-one mentoring sessions with veteran industrialists that will provide guidance on securing orders, raising capital and recruiting workforce. 

Post the completion of the programme, the shortlisted startups can either immigrate to Canada or return to their home country. 

To fulfil its vision of selecting 100-300 Indian startups and entrepreneurs, Khurana said that TBDC will follow a sector-agnostic approach to shortlist startups for its incubation program. It will mainly identify such startups with the help of its ecosystem partners.

“We (TBDC) will scout companies through ecosystem partners and by creating awareness and attraction campaigns. We have a whole digital strategy and also an ambassador strategy, wherein we would help some top VCs in India grow their portfolio companies and infuse more in them,” he added. 

The Canadian accelerator claims to have supported more than 9000 entrepreneurs and startups to date including cleantech unicorn Hydrostor and energy management startup GFL. 

The development comes at a time when the Indian startup ecosystem is facing a turbulent time due to funding crisis, Russia-Ukraine war and market inflation, among others. 

The recent addition to the startup conundrums is the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank which has impacted chunks of startups and unicorns across the globe. 

It is important to note that owing to the SVB crisis, the investment capital of most of the startups were stuck. However, on March 13, the US government approved the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to control SVB Bank and protect the interest of depositors (startups) thereby, providing them access to their funds.