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Nouvelles Montréal inc. Infolettre | 23 mars 2020 Voir ce courriel dans votre navigateur Read this email in English Montréal inc. réunit ses forces avec celles de Bonjour Startup Montréal, la Maison Notman et OSMO pour offrir des ressources, du soutien et des initiatives d'impact pour les entrepreneurs en ce temps de crise. Nous vous enverrons dorénavant deux infolettres par semaine, une les lundis pour vous informer des actions mises en place par nous et d'autres acteurs de l'écosystème, une deuxième les jeudis pour vous tenir au courant des derniers développements sur le plan économique et des mesures d'aide mises en place pour les entreprises. Nos initiatives conjointes Webinaire, mercredi 25 mars, 14h Patrick Gagné, CEO d'OSMO et co-fondateur de Bonjour Startup Montréal, présentera les dernières mesures gouvernementales et échangera avec vous à propos des défis vécus actuellement par les jeunes entreprises. Inscription Replay du Webinaire du 18 mars Documents de présentation Page Web Bonjour Startup Montréal Cette page rassemble les informations relatives aux mesures prises par différentes instances gouvernementales pour assurer la résilience économique en lien avec la maladie à coronavirus (COVID-19). Au fur et à mesure que la situation évolue, nous mettons à jour cette section afin que la communauté startup puisse trouver un maximum de réponses aux questions et inquiétudes. Consulter la page Web Document collaboratif de ressources Consultez et partagez toutes les ressources, questions, inquiétudes que vous avez dans ce document collaboratif ouvert à tout l'écosystème ! Consulter le document Réseau de coachs en soutien aux entrepreneurs Êtes-vous aux prises avec des questions telles que : Comment gérer mon cash-flow? Comment profiter des mesures économiques actuelles? Comment générer des opportunités avec ce qui se passe? Comment tout restructurer avec mon équipe? Est-ce que je prends les bonnes décisions? Vous n'êtes pas seuls. Nos coachs bénévoles expérimentés sont là pour répondre à vos questions SANS FRAIS. Simplement nous contacter à coach@montrealinc.ca en nous précisant vos besoins. Notre équipe de conseillers vous mettra en lien avec la ressource adaptée. Plus d'information Communauté startup sur Slack Consultez et partagez toutes les ressources, questions, inquiétudes que vous avez dans ce document collaboratif ouvert à tout l'écosystème ! Rejoindre la communauté Activités Mtl inc. reportées Prenez note que les activités suivantes sont suspendues: Programme Entreprendre au féminin 5@8 Peer 2 Peer Offre combinée Rive-Sud SIAL (salon reporté au 5, 6 et 7 août 2020) Ateliers Nous réfléchissons présentement à d'autres façons de vous proposer ces contenus et reviendrons vers vous bientôt. L'écosystème en action ! Cook it et Pur Vodka - Cook it et Pur Vodka s'allient pour offrir 6000 repas aux professionnels de la restauration Pop Up Solidaire - Marché virtuel qui a lieu du 23 mars au 12 avril, et qui encourage les artisans d'ici. CHK PLZ - CHK PLZ propose à travers son application des cartes-cadeaux afin d'aider les restaurants dans leur cash flow. Livescale - Livescale ouvre gratuitement sa technologie de diffusion de vidéo en direct sur les réseaux sociaux MAIN - Les accélérateurs d'entreprises du Québec se mobilisent autour d'un plan d'action pour soutenir les startups affectées par le ralentissement économique mondial Remplissez leur sondage ici La Piscine - Service de coaching en ligne adapté à la crise de la COVID-19. Pour rester à l'affût des intitatives voici une liste de groupes Facebook pertinents Vous avez vu ou lancé des initiatives positives? Envoyez-les nous et nous les partagerons ! Ces articles qui font du bien COVID-19: «Accrochez-vous, c'est fini en Chine», dit un entrepreneur québécois - Les Affaires Des chercheurs québécois testeront un médicament contre les complications graves - La Presse Un pharmacien conçoit un outil de triage web gratuit - La Presse Une équipe québécoise écourtera le dépistage de la COVID-19 - UdeM Nouvelles ‘It's okay to be scared': Norway PM holds children-only COVID-19 press conference - SBS News

Si vous êtes un manufacturier canadien ou une entreprise canadienne qui peut aider le Canada à répondre aux besoins en fournitures médicales, mobilisez-vous! Vous pouvez faire une différence si : Vos activités manufacturières sont basées au Canada ou vous avez facilement accès aux intrants nécessaires par le biais de votre chaîne d'approvisionnement. Vous disposez d'équipements pouvant être modifiés ou d'installations qui pourraient être réorganisées rapidement pour répondre aux besoins médicaux, notamment pour fabriquer de l'équipement de protection individuelle comme des gants, des masques et des blouses chirurgicales; des désinfectants; des lingettes; des ventilateurs; et d'autres équipements et fournitures médicaux. Vous avez des travailleurs qualifiés capables de réagir et qui seraient disponibles pour travailler dans les circonstances actuelles. Veuillez envoyer une brève description de votre offre à ic.mid-dim.ic@canada.ca

CRÉONS UNE CHAÎNE SOLIDAIRE DE L'INNOVATION FACE À UNE SITUATION INÉDITE : L'INNOVATION COMME ÉTENDARD PROMPT a pour mission d'accélérer l'innovation et la recherche collaborative dans le secteur des nouvelles technologies afin d'inventer le monde de demain. Plus que jamais au regard de la situation sanitaire, sociale et économique, nous portons cette mission comme un étendard. L'équipe de PROMPT se tient prêt à vous assister et permettre de combler des besoins révélés par cette crise sans précédent. QUE VOUS SOYEZ CHERCHEUR, ENTREPRENEURS, DIRIGEANT : VOUS AVEZ UNE IDÉE , FAITES-LE NOUS SAVOIR ! Pour aider au combat contre le COVID-19 et tous les obstacles et enjeux qu'il créé pour le Québec, le Canada et le monde, PROMPT fait appel à tout le génie et la richesse qui existent au sein de la communauté de recherche et de la communauté entrepreneuriale du Québec. Nous avons aujourd'hui la chance de proposer des solutions aux enjeux multiples soulevés par les maladies infectieuses, et d'assurer le maintien de la prospérité économique du Québec. Si vous avez des idées innovantes ou des projets déjà en cours, des propositions qui ne demandent qu'à voir le jour, Conctactez-nous! Vos idées pourraient faire partie d'un programme de financement PROMPT et nous vous accompagnerons pour trouver au besoin des partenaires et pour créer une chaine solidaire de l'innovation. DONNONS-NOUS les moyens de traverser la crise mais aussi d'être plus forts après celle-ci ! Écrivez-nous à Covid-19@promptinnov.com, particulièrement si vous avez des idées de projets en : Outils de productivité Outils de gestion Outils logistiques Outils de transport et d'approvisionnement Solutions d'automatisations Applications de l'IA aux maladies infectieuses

Dates de fermeture prolongées En raison de l'apparition du coronavirus (COVID-19), nous avons prolongé les dates de fermeture des défis suivants. AI Software for Photonics Semiconductor Fabrication New closing date: April 2, 2020 Logiciel d'intelligence artificielle pour la fabrication de semi-conducteurs photoniques Nouvelle date de fermeture 2 avril, 2020 Nanocomposite Fabrics Production System New closing date: April 7, 2020 Système pour la fabrication de toiles de nanocomposites Nouvelle date de fermeture 7 avril, 2020 Secure and confidential rule matching New closing date: April 16, 2020 Correspondance de règles sécurisée et confidentielle Nouvelle date de fermeture 16 avril, 2020 Low-cost sensor system for patient monitoring New closing date: April 2, 2020 Système de capteurs peu coûteux pour surveiller l'état des patients Nouvelle date de fermeture 2 avril, 2020 Surveying objects across an air-water interface New closing date: April 7, 2020 Topométrie d'objets sur une interface air-eau Nouvelle date de fermeture 7 avril, 2020

The Air Force's new investment strategy is designed to "catalyze the commercial market by bringing our military market to bear," says Roper. By THERESA HITCHENS PENTAGON: The Air Force will roll out the final stage in its commercial startup investment strategy during the March 13-20 South By Southwest music festival, granting one or more contracts worth at least $10 million to startups with game-changing technologies, service acquisition chief Will Roper says. The first-of-its kind event in Austin, called the Air Force Pitch Bowl, will match Air Force investment with private venture capital funds on a one to two ratio, according to a presentation by Capt. Chris Benson of AFWERX at the Strategic Institute's Dec. 4-5 “AcquisitionX” meeting. So, if the Air Force investment fund, called Air Force Ventures, puts in $20 million, the private capital match would be $40 million. AFWERX, the Air Force's innovation unit, has one of its hubs in Austin. “This has been a year in the making now, trying to make our investment arm, the Air Force Ventures, act like an investor, even if it's a government entity,” Roper explained. “We don't invest like a private investor — we don't own equity — we're just putting companies on contract. But for early stage companies, that contract acts a lot like an investor.” The goal is to help steer private resources toward new technologies that will benefit both US consumers and national security to stay ahead of China's rapid tech growth, Roper told reporters here Friday. The Air Force wants to “catalyze the commercial market by bringing our military market to bear,” he said. “We're going to be part of the global tech ecosystem.” Figuring out how to harness the commercial marketplace is critical, Roper explained, because DoD dollars make up a dwindling percentage of the capital investment in US research and development. This is despite DoD's 2021 budget request for research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) of $106.6 billion being “the largest in its history,” according to Pentagon budget rollout materials. The Air Force's share is set at $37.3 billion, $10.3 billion of which is slated for Space Force programs. “We are 20 percent of the R&D is this country — that's where the military is today,” Roper said. “So if we don't start thinking of ourselves as part of a global ecosystem, looking to influence trends, investing in technologies that could be dual-use — well, 20 percent is not going to compete with China long-term, with a nationalized industrial base that can pick national winners.” The process for interested startups to compete for funds has three steps, Roper explained, beginning with the Air Force “placing a thousand, $50K bets per year that are open.” That is, any company can put forward its ideas to the service in general instead of there being a certain program office in mind. “We'll get you in the door,” Roper said, “we'll provide the accelerator functions that connect you with a customer. “Pitch days” are the second step, he said. Companies chosen to be groomed in the first round make a rapid-fire sales pitch to potential Air Force entities — such as Space and Missile Systems Center and Air Force Research Laboratory — that can provide funding, as well as to venture capitalists partnering with the Air Force. As Breaking D broke in October, part of the new acquisition strategy is luring in private capital firms and individual investors to match Air Force funding in commercial startups as a way to to bridge the ‘valley of death' and rapidly scale up capability. The service has been experimenting with ‘pitch days' across the country over the last year, such as the Space Pitch Days held in San Francisco in November when the service handed out $22.5 million to 30 companies over two days. Roper said he intends to make “maybe 300 of those awards per year,” with the research contracts ranging from $1 million to $3 million a piece and “where program dollars get matched by our investment dollars.” The final piece of the strategy, Roper explained, is picking out the start-ups that can successfully field game-changing technologies. “The thing that we're working on now is the big bets, the 30 to 40 big ideas, disruptive ideas that can change our mission and hopefully change the world,” Roper said. “We're looking for those types of companies.” The Air Force on Oct. 16 issued its first call for firms to compete for these larger SBIR contracts under a new type of solicitation, called a “commercial solutions opening.” The call went to companies already holding Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards. The winners will be announced in Austin. If the strategy is successful, Roper said, the chosen firms will thrive and become profitable dual-use firms focused primarily on the commercial market. “The, we're starting to build a different kind of industry base,” Roper enthused. “So, we've gotta get the big bets right. Then most importantly, if you succeed in one of the big bets, then we need to put you on contract on the other side, or else the whole thing is bunk.” https://breakingdefense.com/2020/02/air-force-to-pump-new-tech-startups-with-10m-awards

Hello Members of the SOSCIP Community, Since 2012, SOSCIP has been Canada's leading R&D consortium dedicated to harnessing advanced computing to drive industry innovation. Our mission is to bring together industrial partners and academic researchers and provide them with advanced computing technologies and expertise to solve social, technical and business challenges. Thanks to your sustained support, SOSCIP has built an advanced ecosystem that is integrating state-of-the-art technologies alongside highly qualified personnel (HQP) trained to leverage those technologies and drive Ontario companies to the forefront. We are very excited to announce that SOSCIP is launching two new HPC platforms to meet the rising demand for GPU-Acceleration and Parallel-CPU access among the SOSCIP community. Highlights of the two systems are below and you can read the full description of the platforms on our webpage: GPU-Accelerated Platform The new SOSCIP GPU-Accelerated Platform is a high-performance GPU cluster powered by NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs and IBM Power9 CPUs. Mist is a collaboration between SOSCIP and SciNet, which consists of a total of 54 IBM AC922 servers each with 2×16 core Power9 GPU and 256GB RAM. Each compute node has 4 NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs with 32GB of RAM and CUDA capability 7.0 (Volta). This platform supports AI, Machine Learning and Deep Learning frameworks and has the capability of accelerating Molecular Dynamics codes (NAMD, Gromacs, etc.) and other computationally intensive applications in computational chemistry, geophysics, next generation sequencing and astronomy. Parallel CPU Platform The new SOSCIP Parallel-CPU platform is a homogeneous high-performance system attached to the SciNet supercomputer Niagara, which is designed to enable large parallel jobs in order to optimize throughput of a range of scientific codes running at scale, energy efficiency, and network and storage performance and capacity. Each compute node (based on Lenovo SD530 server) has 40 Intel Skylake/Cascade-Lake cores with 202GB (188 GiB) of RAM. The platform is an ideal system for running parallel code that cannot obtain cost-efficient speedup through GPUs, such as Computational Fluid Dynamics codes (OpenFoam, Nek5000, etc) and Quantum Chemistry codes (VASP, CP2K, etc). Apply now! SOSCIP supports collaborative R&D projects that involve academic and industry researchers working together to solve challenging problems using SOSCIP's compute platforms. Download our application template and apply for priority access on these new platforms by March 6, 2020. For more information, please contact either Andrew Jones at andrew.jones@soscip.org or Amy Hackney at amy.hackney@soscip.org for advice and guidance in completing your application. We are happy to discuss and review all draft proposals ahead of the priority application deadline. We look forward to seeing what you can do with these amazing new systems! Best regards, Tibor Tibor Turi, Ph.D. P.Eng. Executive Director | SOSCIP

Bonjour, Je travaille actuellement pour le CRIAQ et je suis responsable du dossier de la bourse start-up. Pour une deuxième année, il me fait plaisir de vous confirmer le lancement de la « Bourse start-up du CRIAQ 2020 » (deux bourses de 10 000 $) qui s'est tenu le jeudi 23 janvier 2020 à Québec. Suite à ce lancement, nous sollicitons votre appui afin de faire parvenir les informations relatives à ce concours aux start-up intéressées. http://criaq.aero/programme/criaq-startup/ Dominique Pouliot Coordonnatrice projets spéciaux | Coordinator Special Projects Consortium de recherche et d'innovation en aérospatiale au Québec Consortium for Research and Innovation in Aerospace in Québec 740, rue Notre-Dame Ouest, bureau 1400, Montréal (Québec) Canada H3C 3X6 T : +1 438 823-3775 | dominique.pouliot@criaq.aero | www.criaq.aero

By: Jill Aitoro SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — Private investors are not yet lining up to back defense startups, but they are paying close attention. Two factors have created an opening that could lure venture capitalists to defense investments: first, a few select venture-backed technology startups are gaining traction; and second, there's been a strategic shift in approach to weapons development from the U.S. Department of Defense, focusing more on information warfare and, as such, software. In the words of Mike Madsen, director of strategic engagement at the Pentagon's commercial tech hub, Defense Innovation Unit: "We're at a significant inflection point right now that will be visible through the lens of history.” Nonetheless, for the tech startups, it's been slow going, as discussed during a Defense News roundtable in California. For the second year, leadership from DoD and the tech community came together to discuss the state of the Pentagon's efforts to attract commercial startups — this time digging into the challenges and opportunities that come with investment in defense development. “We went into this eyes wide open, knowing full well that to the venture community, the math doesn't make sense. Making the choice to contribute to the advancement of artificial intelligence for DoD represented for us more of a mission-driven objective,” said Ryan Tseng, founder of artificial intelligence startup Shield AI. But early on, “we were fortunate to get the backing of Andreessen Horowitz, a top-tier venture fund. They're certainly leaning in, in terms of their thinking about defense technology — believing that despite the history, there might be a way to find an opening to create companies that can become economically sustainable and make substantial mission impact.” Shield AI has raised $50 million in venture funding since 2015, with more rounds expected. Indeed, a few key Silicon Valley investors have emerged as the exceptions to the rule, putting dollars toward defense startups. In addition to Andreessen Horowitz, which counts both Shield AI and defense tech darling Anduril in its portfolio, there's General Catalyst, which also invested in Anduril, as well as AI startup Vannevar Labs. And then of course there's Founders Fund. Led by famed Silicon investors Peter Thiel, Ken Howery and Brian Singerman, among others, the venture firm was an early investor in Anduril, as well as mobile mesh networking platform goTenna. Founders Fund placed big bets on Palantir Technologies and SpaceX in the early days, which paid off in a big way. Some of the early successes of these startups have “done an excellent job of making investors greedy,” said Katherine Boyle, an investor with General Catalyst. “There's a growing group who are interested in this sector right now, and they've looked at the success of these companies and [are] saying: ‘OK, let's learn about it.' ” Take Anduril: The defense tech startup — co-founded by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and Founders Fund partner Trae Stephens — has raised more than $200 million and hit so-called unicorn status in 2019, reaching a valuation of more than $1 billion. As the successes piled up, so did the venture capital funding. According to Fortune magazine, those investors included Founders Fund, 8VC, General Catalyst, XYZ Ventures, Spark Capital, Rise of the Rest, Andreessen Horowitz, and SV Angel. “I started my career at Allen & Company investment banking. Herbert Allen, who's in his 80s, always said: ‘Hey, you should run into an industry where people are running away,' ” said John Tenet, a partner with 8VC as well as a co-founder and vice chairman of defense startup Epirus. “There's so much innovation occurring, where the government can be the best and biggest customer. And there are people who really want to solve hard problems. It's just figuring out where the synergies lie, what the ‘one plus one equals three' scenario will be.” Also attracting the attention of Silicon Valley investors is the growing emphasis by the Pentagon not only on systems over platforms, but software over hardware. Boyle described the shift as the “macro tailwind” that often drives innovation in a sector. Similar revolutions happened in industrials and automotive markets — both of which are also massive, global and slow-moving. That emphasis on tech, combined with some recent hard lessons, also provides a glimmer of hope that the typical hurdles associated with defense investments — lengthy procurement cycles and dominance by traditional manufacturers, for example — could be overcome. Consider U.S. Code 2377, which requires that commercially available items be considered first in procurement efforts, said Anduril's Stephens. He also noted court decisions in lawsuits filed by SpaceX and Palantir, which ultimately validated claims that defense agencies had not properly ensured a level playing field for major competitions. “These types of things are now at least in recent memory for Congress, and so they have some awareness of the issues that are being faced,” Stephens said. “It's much easier now to walk into a congressional office and say, ‘Here's the problem that we're facing' or ‘Here's the policy changes that we would need.' There are also enough bodies like DIU, like In-Q-Tel, like AFWERX, like the Defense Innovation Board, like the [Defense Science Board] — places where you can go to express the need for change. And oftentimes you do see that language coming into the [National Defense Authorization Act]. It's part of a longer-term cultural battle for sure.” For now, all these factors contribute to the majority of skeptical investors' decisions to watch the investments with interest — even if they still take a wait-and-see approach. And that places a lot of pressure on the companies that are, in a sense, the proof of concept for a new portfolio segment. “My fear is that if this generation of companies doesn't figure [it] out, if they don't knock down the doors and if there aren't a few successes, we're going to have 20, 30 years of just no investor looking around the table and saying we need to work for the Department of Defense,” Boyle said. “If there aren't some success stories coming out of this generation of companies, it's going to be very hard to look our partners in the eye and say: ‘We should keep investing in defense because look at how well things have turned out.'” https://www.defensenews.com/smr/cultural-clash/2020/01/30/as-tech-startups-catch-dods-eye-big-investors-are-watching/

By: Joe Gould WASHINGTON ― Brooklyn-based technology startup goTenna launched in 2014 with a candy bar-sized gadget that pairs with smartphones to create off-grid, no-network communications. Though it was originally a commercial product, the company has received millions of dollars' worth of government business since 2015, mostly with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security but also with Special Operations Command, the Air Force, the Navy and the Army. About 150,000 devices have shipped. The Army has spent millions of dollars with goTenna, but the service cannot give the company one of the most important things for a small business ― the certainty of recurring revenue. “Now the funding is out, and even the program officer for that program doesn't know where we go next within the Army,” goTenna founder and CEO Daniela Perdomo said at a Defense News-hosted roundtable in December. “That's in part why we've been spending more time, frankly, on civilian public safety. Because even though DHS is consistently [under funding restrictions], they seem to be moving. They seem to move faster.” That sort of inconsistency and confusion is why tech startups dealing with the Pentagon, as well as investors, so dread the gap between their innovative product's development and the Pentagon's sluggish decisions to launch. That gap has a nickname: “the valley of death.” The Pentagon has experimented with a variety of means to buy emerging technologies, an important goal as it seeks to preserve its edge against Russia and China. But one truism ― affirmed in a recent report from the Ronald Reagan Institute ― is that the federal government has been unable to fully adapt its practices to promote and harness private sector innovation, despite making strides. Addressing the House Armed Services Committee on Jan. 15, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy said the valley of death between a product's development and the moment that product becomes part of a program of record remains an obstacle. She said that's partly because acquisitions officials don't use the new authorities granted by Congress over recent years. The excitement of receiving development money from the Department of Defense stands in stark contrast to what often follows. “[Startups] win the prototype competition: ‘Great, we love you.' And that's in, like, FY19,” Flournoy said. “And then they are told, ‘OK, we are going to have [a request for proposals] for you in '21,' and [the startups] are like: ‘OK, but what do I do in '20? I have got a 10-year hole in my business plan, and my investors are pressuring me to drop the work on DoD because it's too slow, it's too small dollars.'” How would Flournoy fix it? She advised the Pentagon to hire tech talent ― “smart buyers and developers and fielders of new technologies” ― and create a bridge fund for firms in competitive areas like artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and quantum computing. (The idea seemed to resonate with Texas Rep. Mac Thornberry, who is the panel's top Republican and the author of multiple acquisitions reform laws passed in recent years.) At the Defense News roundtable, leaders from the tech community said not only has it been difficult for small businesses to enter an aerospace and defense market dominated by five major firms, but it's hard for startups to justify to investors that the government should be retained as a client when it is often the least decisive. “I think the fundamental misunderstanding between the DoD and venture investors is just how difficult it is to keep the wheels on a fast-growing startup,” said Katherine Boyle of venture capital firm General Catalyst. But the Pentagon is working to bridge the gap between prototype and production. Over the last year, the Defense Innovation Unit ― the department's outpost in Austin, Texas; Boston, Massachusetts; and California's Silicon Valley ― has launched two internal teams, for defense and commercial engagement, to envision these transitions and match them to the Pentagon's five-year budgeting process, according to DIU's director of strategic engagement, Mike Madsen. These teams are tasked with learning the needs of the services, working with commercial industry to develop prototypes to meet those needs and then helping market the prototypes more broadly within the Defense Department. Along these lines, DIU helped a company that developed a predictive maintenance application for the Air Force ― Redwood City, California-based C3.ai ― win a predictive maintenance contract for Army ground vehicles. C3.ai has since created a federal arm unit. A quarter of all prototypes awarded by DIU transitioned to programs of record, and another 50 percent are eligible for the transition. “It will take time for us to develop the right cultural instincts, but it's already happening,” said DIU's director of commercial engagement, Tom Foldesi. Anduril Industries co-founder and Founders Fund partner Trae Stephens has often criticized the DoD's approach to Silicon Valley. But speaking at the Defense News panel, he acknowledged progress through DIU's ability to harness the flexible other transaction authority, a congressionally mandated contracting mechanism that makes it easier to prototype capabilities. He also praised the Air Force's effort to rework Small Business Innovation Research funds to target more mature technologies. “I don't know who's responsible for banging the table about it over and over, but somebody is out there saying it," Stephens said. “It seems to be coming across in the messaging in some way.” https://www.defensenews.com/2020/01/30/tech-startups-still-face-the-pentagons-valley-of-death/