Lab2Market awarded $32M to lead national network for innovation, commercialization and entrepreneurship skills training
Article by the Springboard Atlantic. Full article available here.
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Dalhousie program and Springboard partner Lab2Market, Canada’s national network for innovation, commercialization, and entrepreneurship skills training, has been awarded $32 million in funding from the Government of Canada.
This investment will propel Lab2Market’s mission to transform academic research into real-world solutions, startups, and impact across Canada.
The funding was announced by the Honourable Terry Duguid, Minister of Sport at Red River College Polytechnic in Winnipeg.
The investment will be administered by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) in collaboration with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Lab2Market: a Canadian innovation success story
Since 2020, Lab2Market, in partnership with Mitacs, has supported over 1,000 researchers and students from 40+ academic institutions, resulting in 133+ startups, $34.1M in follow-on funding, and countless stories of innovation—like battery breakthroughs now powering Tesla or revolutionary cancer treatments earning global recognition.
Already thriving as a pilot at 15 partner institutions across the country, the new funding allows Lab2Market to expand to more than 50 Canadian universities, colleges, and research hospitals, helping to unlock the commercial potential of $7.8 billion in collective annual research funding.
Lab2Market Suite of Programs
Lab2Market is modelled on international best practices, including the American National Science Foundation I-CorpsTM program, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s MIT delt v program, and ICURe from the United Kingdom.
The program consists of four streams:
Discover – a part-time early-stage program cultivating interest in commercialization over 10 weeks, with participants learning foundational concepts and skills of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Validate – a full-time four-month program that develops competencies focused on customer discovery and market-validation.
Launch – a full-time four-month program that builds the skills needed to create a business model capable of bringing research-based innovations to market.
Build – a 12-month program designed to guide researchers through all phases of product development. Offering a curriculum developed by industry experts, mentorship from ex-startup founders and investors
The Lab2Market program guides participants through every step of the entrepreneurial journey, setting them on a trajectory to commercialize their research-based innovations and build successful businesses around them.
Springboard member Dalhousie University established as national Lab2Market headquarters for six regional hubs
This new funding establishes Dalhousie University as the national headquarters of Lab2Market, an innovation, commercialization and entrepreneurship skills training program founded by Dalhousie and Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) in 2020.
With this new funding, Lab2Market is scaling nationally with six regional hubs and a health-focused hub to empower Canada’s brightest minds to tackle society’s biggest challenges.
From idea validation to venture creation, the program helps build Canada’s innovation ecosystem and foster talent for the future.
“Lab2Market creates a vital pathway for graduate students and researchers to transform ideas into ventures that improve lives and drive economic growth. By expanding our network of institutional partners, we can maximize the return on government investments in research, ensuring they deliver tangible benefits for the communities we serve.”
Jeff Larsen, Dalhousie’s Assistant Vice President, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and CEO of Lab2Market
Springboard members part of Lab2Market Atlantic Hub
Lab2Market is led by an Executive Committee with representatives from Dalhousie and Toronto Metropolitan University, University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, University of Alberta, University of Calgary, University of Manitoba, McMaster University, Université Laval, Concordia University, and Memorial University.
Atlantic Hub delivery partners:
University of New Brunswick
Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador
Atlantic contributing partners:
University of Prince Edward Island
Saint Mary’s University
Nova Scotia Community College
College of the North Atlantic
Universite de Moncton
Lab2Market helps Dal researcher establish start-up Myomar Molecular
Dr. Rafaela Andrade leveraged Lab2Market after her PhD in biochemistry at Dalhousie to establish Myomar Molecular. The Halifax-based company produces direct-to-consumer and practitioner tests to monitor muscle degeneration.
During the program, she interviewed more than 100 stakeholders – from physiotherapists to orthopedic surgeons – to finetune her product. The result is the first “pee-on-a-stick test” to assess muscle health, replacing costly, stressful and time-consuming blood tests.
“Lab2Market gave me the exposure to what our product would look like and what value it could bring to society. It was the spark that I needed to push forward with more research, to show that we could create a useful product for early detection that fills a gap and enhances patient outcomes,”
Dr. Rafaela Andrade, Myomar Molecular
Myomar Molecular gained Health Canada permission to sell the test in June 2024 and is currently working with the Canadian Speed Skating team to enhance training.
Myomar Molecular received also support from Springboard IPAdvantage in 2023.
Lab2Market ecosystem
At Dalhousie, Lab2Market is woven into an ecosystem of entrepreneurship and innovation programs available including:
Students and researchers across Canada can apply to Lab2Market programs without formal affiliation with its program leads or delivery partners.
Support for Dal Innovates
The Province of Nova Scotia, Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and Mitacs support Dal Innovates programs, the Emera ideaHUB and CDL-Atlantic, making investments that are creating a pipeline of talent and new companies to drive innovation, productivity and economic growth in Nova Scotia and across the country.