OCI — Ready 4 Market (R4M)

• The company must be a for-profit corporation incorporated in Ontario or elsewhere in Canada for no more than five years.
• The company must be headquartered and primarily operating in Ontario, with more than 50% of its current employees located in Ontario.
• The company must be an early-stage technology business close to commercialization, ideally with a built product and some initial market traction.
• The company must have intellectual property originating from an Ontario-based academic institution, or be part of a campus incubator/accelerator at an academic institution, or be a university/college/research hospital spin-out.
• The company must have raised less than $1 million in third-party capital and be seeking a pre-seed or seed investment round between $500,000 and $2 million, with Ontario-based accredited investors participating.

Who is eligible?

• Ontario-based early-stage technology companies close to commercialization
• Academic-affiliated companies commercializing intellectual property from Ontario universities, colleges, or research hospitals
• Start-ups originating from campus incubators or accelerators at academic institutions in Ontario
• Companies developing transformative technologies in sectors such as IT, robotics, AI, cleantech, and advanced manufacturing
• Ontario-headquartered companies with the majority of their workforce located in Ontario

Who is not eligible

• Companies developing human health or life sciences technologies, as these sectors are explicitly excluded from this fund.
• Companies that are not headquartered and predominantly located in Ontario (i.e., less than 50% of current headcount based in Ontario).
• Companies that are not early-stage technology businesses close to commercialization (for example, ventures without a built product or any early market traction).
• Companies that have already received investment from the Life Sciences Innovation Fund (LSIF), as LSIF and R4M portfolio status are mutually exclusive.

Eligible expenses

Ready 4 Market supports early-stage companies in Ontario by co-investing in the commercialization of transformative technologies. Companies benefit from de-risking investment opportunities, strategic growth support, and access to further investments.

• Co-investment in early-stage start-ups focused on transformative technologies.
• Support for companies with strong intellectual property based in Ontario.
• Assistance in becoming investor and customer ready.
• Facilitation of scalable business growth in various technology sectors.

Eligible geographic areas

• Companies headquartered and predominantly located within the Province of Ontario, Canada.

• Strength of the company’s long-term competitiveness in its target market.
• Quality and robustness of the company’s intellectual property.
• Clarity and uniqueness of the company’s value proposition.
• Capacity and readiness of the business to scale.
• Size of the addressable market (must be at least $100 million).

• The fund is managed by the Ontario Centre of Innovation on behalf of the Government of Ontario.
• R4M is a competitive co-investment fund that typically closes around 20 investments per year from hundreds of companies considered.
• R4M is positioned as a pan-provincial fund serving start-ups across the entire province of Ontario.
• Portfolio companies of Ready 4 Market (R4M) and those of the Life Sciences Innovation Fund (LSIF) cannot receive investment from the other fund.