Raising The Bar

The DMZ’s Incubator program gives founders from diverse backgrounds targeted support to accelerate their business growth

For startups in the tech ecosystem, having the right type of support is crucial for growth and success. But for tech founders who come from underrepresented groups in the sector, such as those from the Black community or women of colour, targeted programming that helps alleviate the unique systemic challenges they face within the ecosystem is all the more crucial. 

For companies accepted into the 18-month Incubator program at Toronto Metropolitan University’s DMZ, the specialized support, resources and programming has made all the difference to their ability to learn, grow and succeed. 

“It’s so important to have this tailored support,” says Ayodele Pompey, co-founder and CEO of SmartTerm, an education technology company that digitizes the operations of schools, providing end-to-end solutions that manage the entire student life cycle, from applicant to alumni. 

“Having that group of people who you can share your experiences with is another layer of support that really gets to the core of who you are and the challenges you face as an entrepreneur,” says Pompey. “Having that community where people look like you, sound like you and have similar experiences, and who are ready and willing to share, help and build relationships has been so important for our growth as a company.”

Pompey says SmartTerm “grew tenfold” during the company’s time in the Black Innovation Program, as part of the DMZ’s Incubator program.  

“There’s no growth without support as a tech startup.”

At the DMZ, support comes in a variety of forms, from advice and mentorship, to training, resources and perks. The community of Experts-in-Residence that the Incubator offers participants has been particularly instructive and beneficial, he adds. 

“Imagine it like a buffet at a restaurant. Exactly when you need support in a particular area, it’s there. You have access to top quality industry experts who are giving you personalized advice,” he says. 

For Sumathi Pundit, founder of Kaitongo Inc, an AI-powered customer intelligence platform that provides B2B sales teams high quality industry and company knowledge to use as conversation starters enabling them to “know their customer” and get beyond small talk to build stronger relationships, the DMZ’s programming offered a window into Toronto’s tech ecosystem. Sumathi, whose company recently entered the Women Founders program as part of the DMZ Incubator, was already an experienced entrepreneur but Kaitongo was her first foray into the tech startup world, and she soon realized she needed support to succeed. 

“The startup tech world was a whole different ball game,” says Pundit. “Unlike my previous services business, raising capital is a critical part of building a technology company because not only do you have to invest in building the initial product, to succeed, you have to keep investing in evolving the product, particularly once you have customers. “Capital Raise was a process I was completely unfamiliar with, and the experts in the program have helped me improve already in just the six weeks I have been part of the Incubator.”

Being a woman of colour in the tech startup space can often be a challenging journey. The barriers are well documented, with studies showing that only a tiny fraction of venture capital funding goes to women-founded companies and an even smaller percent of this funding flowing to women of colour. That’s why, says Pundit, having access to the resources and support of an accelerator like the DMZ’s is critical. The community of founders at the DMZ and the “energy and buzz of its location and offices” also feeds her energy as an entrepreneur.

And given the DMZ’s international reputation as a world-class Incubator, being associated with its brand is an immediate benefit that helps open doors for founders and sets a more positive tone to investor meetings, Pundit adds. 

“I would encourage all women founders to have the support of a program like DMZ—it’s so necessary,” Pundit says. “We don’t always come into this journey with the networks we need for success.”

Darace Rose, whose father has operated a Jamaican restaurant in Toronto’s Eglinton West neighbourhood for 35 years, says he was “born with entrepreneurship in his DNA,” learning the ins and outs of building and running a business as a youngster. Still, he wanted to take advantage of the support available to founders in the Black community. The cybersecurity company he co-founded, Oppos, which enables companies to set up, maintain and right-size their security program and privacy programs without hiring any staff, is about two months into the DMZ’s Incubator within the Black Innovation Program, a stream that allows Black-founded startups to tap into additional growth benefits when joining the DMZ.

The expertise available was instrumental in developing him as a stronger founder, giving him a strategic edge and deeper understanding of how to build for success.

“Working with the DMZ helped us focus, specialize, understand and identify that you don't have to be all things to all people—instead, pick your lane, and really focus on being an expert in that lane as opposed to a generalist. And that's when we're really going to see our big wins,” Rose says. 

And after two decades working in the tech space and often being the only person in the room who looked like him, being among so much representation was refreshing, he says.  “Having a culturally connected but also economically connected space that is safe for us as entrepreneurs, it was comforting.” 

Not only that, the program leads care not just about businesses in the Incubator, but their founders as people. “They want to ensure you're taking care of yourself, because they see that founders are worried about everything else but themselves.”

That welcoming community made all the difference, says SmartTerm’s Pompey. “A lot of people talk about sweat equity and how hard you have to work as a startup, but there's also the emotional equity that goes into a startup,” Pompey says. “There are some very high highs and some very low lows, and that community is so critically important to helping you navigate those stages of development.”