Ignite

CABHI supports innovations that address challenges associated with older persons and their care partners, with a particular focus on dementia. Examples of challenges that CABHI seeks to solve include the following themes:

• Aging at Home

• Caregiver Support

• Care Coordination + Navigation

• Cognitive + Mental Health

• Financial Health + Wellness

• Women’s Brain Health + FemTech    

Online Application: Applicants submit through the online application portal. Applications are reviewed and scored by CABHI’s review panel, and selected applicants are invited to due diligence interviews and final review.

Shortlist Interviews: Shortlisted applicants participate in an interview to confirm eligibility and allow the review team to further assess application quality as part of the competitive selection process.

Selection + Contracting: CABHI notifies selected and non-selected applicants and proceeds with contracting for successful applicants.

Applicant Eligibility

Company applicants

• The company must be incorporated in Canada, either federally or provincially.

• The company/venture cannot be owned (in part or in whole) by a parent company.

• The lead applicant must have signing authority for the company/venture (generally the founder and/or CEO).

• The applicant must have a minimum of 1.0 full-time equivalent (FTE) personnel that have been working on this project within the past 6 months.

• The applicant must have a minimum of 1.0 full-time equivalent (FTE) personnel dedicated to the project for its duration.

• The company must meet the following maturity criteria:

  • Funding Raised (Private + Public): Less than $2M CAD

  • Annual Revenue Generated: Less than $250k CAD

  • Company Valuation*: Does not exceed $6M CAD

    • *Valuation represents the projected financial value of your company, determined by investors or financial institutions using funding mechanisms such as convertible notes, SAFEs (Simple Agreements for Future Equity), or priced equity rounds. If you have not received a formal valuation through these mechanisms, your company is “Pre-Valuation” and therefore eligible for this criterion.

Healthcare/research organization applicants

• The applicant must be affiliated with an accredited Canadian academic institution (e.g., university, college) or a recognized research or healthcare organization (e.g., hospital, research institute).

• The applicant must hold a position as a faculty member, postdoctoral fellow, point-of-care worker (e.g., physician, nurse, PSW, clinical manager), or research scientist at the affiliated institution or organization.

• Must control Intellectual Property (IP) and have filed (or intends to file) for Intellectual Property protection.

• The applicant must have a minimum of 1.0 full-time equivalent (FTE) personnel that have been working on this project within the past 6 months.

• The applicant must have a minimum of 1.0 full-time equivalent (FTE) personnel dedicated to the project for its duration.

• The project team must also meet the following maturity criteria:

  • Funding Received towards specific IP: Less than $2M CAD

  • Technology Readiness Level (TRL): 2-6

Project Eligibility

• The innovative solution must clearly address at least one of the six CABHI Innovation themes.

• Applicants must provide a 1:1 matching contribution to CABHI’s funding in the form of cash, in-kind contributions, or a combination of both.

• The project and associated budget must focus on the completion of eligible milestones.

• The project must be a full-time endeavor for the lead applicant and/or a member of their team.

• The applicant organization may not be concurrently participating in another active CABHI-funded program (e.g., Fuel, Amplify, NextGen, CSC).

• Previous awardees to CABHI programs (e.g., Ignite, Fuel, Amplify) are ineligible, with the exception of NextGen and the CABHI Science Collaborative (CSC).

All applications will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

Solution (40%)

• Strength and novelty of the proposed solution; how clearly it addresses a key problem in aging and brain health and the potential impact of its effectiveness.

Market (20%)

• Understanding of the target users and their lived experience, market need, and potential for adoption, scalability, and sustainability.

Team (20%)

• Expertise, commitment, and capacity of the team to successfully deliver on the project and achieve impact. This category also considers early indicators of team success such as progress and achievements based on the amount of time working on this solution.

Project (20%)

• Clarity, feasibility, leveraged resources, and alignment of the proposed project plan, milestones, and use of funds with CABHI’s objectives.

• CABHI will not obtain any ownership rights to the intellectual property associated with the completion of your business or validation milestones, but CABHI will have the right to disseminate the results of your business or validation milestones. 

• CABHI reserves the right to select applications in order to maintain a balanced portfolio, which includes but is not limited to the number of funded projects in the various applicant streams, distribution of companies across Innovation Themes, regional representation, and alignment with our commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) practices. 

• CABHI may terminate negotiations or invite an alternate applicant to engage in negotiations if a contract is not signed in a reasonable amount of time (to be determined exclusively by CABHI). 

• CABHI reserves the right to decline any application and to modify or annul this Call for Innovation at any time without incurring any liability. 

The following application resources are available on CABHI’s website as downloadable PDFs: 

• CABHI Eligible Expenses Guidelines 

• CABHI Matching Funds Guidelines