Skip to content
NB Tech NewsSubscribe

Startups3 min read

Fredericton's Vimy Forge Taps MaRS to Match Defence Startups With Investors

The nonprofit accelerator that already puts founders in front of soldiers at Gagetown is adding Toronto's MaRS capital program as a financing lane — not a new fund.

A test drone and soldiers beside three defence startups linked by curving lines to three investors at a Toronto capital program building

Toronto’s MaRS Discovery District and Fredericton’s Vimy Forge are pairing up so Canadian defence startups and the investors who might back them can find each other, The Logic reported on September 22. The Telegraph-Journal has the same pairing.

This is a matchmaking deal, not a cheque. Neither outlet published a dollar figure for the partnership, and MaRS is not writing a defence fund out of Toronto. What it is adding, The Logic says, is the first run of a capital matchmaking engine: pair unproven defence and dual-use companies with investors who understand procurement timelines, then help those companies hit the milestones that make them investable.

What each side actually brings

Vimy Forge already does the part MaRS does not. The accelerator, based in Fredericton, runs founders through week-long residencies with Canadian Armed Forces operators — including a June stay at CFB Gagetown. The public site lists the first cohort, Black Flight, and a program that runs March 2026 to March 2027 in twelve-week sprints. The Logic says a second cohort is due in January.

MaRS brings the capital side it already runs for other sectors — and, its capital-program head Liam Gill said in the announcement, an admission that defence is not one of them. “Most of the capital in this country, especially in the defence sector, is chasing companies that have already proven themselves,” Gill said, in The Logic’s account. The gap the partnership is trying to close is the one between a founder who can build something and an investor who knows how the Department of National Defence actually buys it.

Vimy Forge does not take equity. Managing director and co-founder Duncan McSporran told The Logic that matters for trust on the military side: the accelerator’s job is to create the conditions for a conversation, then step out of it. Co-founder Ian Whytock, a venture capitalist at Halifax’s Tidal Venture Partners, put the investor problem in SaaS language: a generation raised on annual recurring revenue is looking at companies that may sell physical kit, on a time-limited contract, to one customer.

Gagetown, UNB, and a four-hour drive

McSporran is a British Army veteran who did a secondment at Gagetown and later supported research at institutions including UNB. The Fredericton pin is geography as much as campus: Gagetown is the army’s main training base; The Logic quotes him saying CFB Greenwood and CFB Halifax sit inside a four-hour drive. That is an Atlantic triangle, not a Toronto one.

The accelerator is not a new logo invented for this partnership. On February 9, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency announced $997,000 through the Regional Defence Investment Initiative to stand the program up. Vimy Forge posted the same figure the day of that release.

AVSS is a Rothesay-founded hardware company that made the first supplier list on Ottawa’s Defence Drone Initiative Marketplace. Vimy Forge is the nonprofit trying to get the next companies onto lists like that — and, now, into rooms with people who write cheques.

What the partnership does not certify

There is no published count of introductions, no named New Brunswick company in this week’s write-ups, and no disclosed ticket size. The first cohort on Vimy Forge’s own site is a national list. The news is the financing lane, not a local raise.

Sources

Related coverage

Tags