News & Events

On September 23, Cyclica, a Canadian biotechnology company invested by China Canada Angel Alliance (CCAA for short) managed by Zhongguancun Dahe Capital, was selected as one of CIX’s top ten growth stage start-ups.

CIX (Canadian Innovation Exchange) is the most influential startup exhibition in Canada. It has been held once a year since 2007, mainly targeting the most promising start-ups in Canada. Its CIX TOP is Canada’s only honor project for start-ups. Every year, it evaluates and screens the most promising and innovative early or growing start-ups nationwide, and publishes two lists, CIX TOP20 Early and CIX TOP10 Growth. In 2020, more than 478 Canadian start-ups will apply for the CIX TOP project, and in 2021, the number of applicants will reach 492 (Figure 1). As CIX exhibition and conference will attract a large number of Canadian start-ups to participate every year, CIX conference is also favored by Canada, the United States and the world’s major angel investment, venture capital (VC), private equity (PE), enterprises and acquirers. Because of this, in the past ten years, CIX has gradually developed into an important communication platform in the field of entrepreneurship and venture capital, playing an important role in establishing interpersonal networks, establishing new partnerships, and increasing transaction flows.

Picture 1: CIX, as the most authoritative startup exhibition in Canada, attracts hundreds of Canadian start-ups every year. The figure shows the data of 2020.

It is worth mentioning that the CIX Selection Committee is composed of more than 100 world-renowned technology investors, and the evaluation and screening process involves several important factors, including product/service provision, management depth, market opportunities, business model and diversity of management team. In addition, due to the impact of the COVID-19 in recent years, CIX also encourages start-ups to share valuable experience on how the global COVID-19 epidemic affects their business and how to continue to succeed under this background in the selection process in 2021.

Lauren Linton, the executive director of CIX, said, “This year, we saw an increase of 14% in applications from all regions of Canada. The surge in applications shows that Canadian startups are keen to show their innovation and have resumed normal operations (after the epidemic). This year’s applicants are very impressive.” Linton also added, “Due to the impact of the COVID-19, it has been difficult for investors to obtain the deal flow, and this carefully planned list of companies helps them target popular start-ups.”

Naheed Kurji, co-founder, president and CEO of Cyclica, said that, “Today, Cyclica was named one of the top ten long-term companies in 2021 by CIX. I feel very honored. Nearly 500 companies across Canada have applied. We were named together with some disruptive companies such as Dapper Labs, BlueDot, Nest Wealth and many other excellent companies. You know, six years ago, we were still trying to survive, and many people gave up on us. But we took the past failures as a lesson, Take people’s views as the driving force and fuel – we work tirelessly to explain our vision, improve our execution, and shape our corporate culture. I am very grateful to my incredible team, investors, consultants, and many others who have had a profound impact on Cyclica in the past few years. “