The Entrepreneurship Hatchery  ☰ 
About us
WE CREATE

STARTUPS
Founded in 2012, The Entrepreneurship Hatchery provides a comprehensive suite of programs and services designed to help students with entrepreneurial ambitions form teams, develop new competencies and launch their companies. Over the last five years, The Hatchery has helped to launch over 94 new startups, which collectively have raised close to $64 million in seed funding. Students start by attending events throughout the school year — the Hatchery offers Idea Markets, Speaker Series, Coffee Days, Cofounders Day, Hatchery Circle, Accelerator Weekend – events that nurture a strong culture of entrepreneurship on campus. From there, teams apply to one of the Hatchery’s four processes: Hatchery NEST, designed for all current U of T students, Hatchery LaunchLab, which caters to graduate-level research driven startups looking to commercialize their discoveries, Hatchery Social, which enables social impact startups such as non-for-profit and social critical challenges, and the Start@UTIAS+Hatchery, which is a process designed for UTIAS students or recent graduates with the goal of feeding into either the NEST or LaunchLab stream.
OUR PROGRAMS
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Through bi-weekly pitch sessions, the teams also receive detailed feedback on how to hone their message and build the confidence that will enable them to attract their first investors. The process culminates in Demo week, held in early September, where selected teams transition to the Go-to-Market phase.

During this phase, teams will receive guidance from an investment committee and have the opportunity to receive seed-funding from the Hatchery, given the committee’s confidence in the start-up.
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Enabling Graduate and Faculty-level Research Driven Startup Companies.

Providing support to research -based startups, led by graduate students and faculty. We enable teams to sustain themselves while they complete the steps necessary to define a business model for their technology and attract investment.
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A partnership between the Hatchery and the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies students (UTIAS), accepted teams must have at least one UTIAS student (or recent graduate) to receive funding, mentorship and access to resources.
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Build to enable social impact startups, such as non-for-profit or social critical challenges.

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The Hatchery Alumni program, will enable Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering (FASE) Alumni to make use of The Entrepreneurship Hatchery platform in the creation of their own startups.

WHAT IS DEMO DAY?

Demo Day is the culmination of The Hatchery NEST, a four-month process which pairs student teams with experienced mentors -- including executives, lawyers, entrepreneurs etc. -- to develop their businesses. They receive detailed feedback on their business plans, explore their proposed market, learn about patents and marketing, and build prototypes using 3D printers and other fabrication resources.

THE TEAM
JOSEPH OROZCO EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
PRATYUSH RAMAN GO-TO-MARKET LEAD
MIMI HAO OPERATIONS LEAD
ERIKA MURRAY GO-TO-MARKET LEAD
SHANNON LEE PROGRAMS LEAD
BYRON LIAO INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LEAD
MITRAVASU PRAKASH SOFTWARE DEVELOPER
BRANDON LO SOFTWARE ENGINEER
ALFREDO MARTINEZ GO-TO-MARKET CONNECTOR
CLARISSA RATJEN GO-TO-MARKET CONNECTOR
THEODORE NGO GO-TO-MARKET CONNECTOR
LAURA SPANGNUOLO GO-TO-MARKET CONNECTOR
KRISTINA WOLFF GO-TO-MARKET CONNECTOR
DANIEL SCARPITTI NEST LAW CONNECTOR
DANIEL SCARPITTI NEST LAW CONNECTOR
SAM DREYZIN NEST LAW CONNECTOR
ABBY SASITHARAN NEST LAW CONNECTOR
KARLY KOLYNCHUK NEST LAW CONNECTOR
JENNA NADEL NEST LAW CONNECTOR
FRANK YUAN NEST LAW CONNECTOR
ARIFAH RAZACK NEST MBA CONNECTOR
JIMMY YUHONG ZHU NEST MBA CONNECTOR
MERLIT MATHEW NEST MMI INTERN
HUIKANG YE NEST MMI INTERN
MIKE PRINCIPATO NEST MBA CONNECTOR
KIERAN GREKUL-SOMERVILLE NEST MBA CONNECTOR
MARCO CICCONE NEST MBA CONNECTOR
NATHAN WOLGELERENTER NEST MBA CONNECTOR
OUR ADVISORY BOARD
ADJ.PROF. JOSEPH OROZCO EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
PROF. CHRISTOPHER YIP DEAN, FACULTY OF APPLIED SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING
PROF. JONATHAN ROSE CHAIR, ADVISORY BOARD
PROF. MARK FOX MEMBER, ADVISORY BOARD
PROF. MARK KORTSCHOT MEMBER, ADVISORY BOARD
PROF. JOSEPH PARADI MEMBER, ADVISORY BOARD