On Wednesday, October 31st, 2012, two University of Waterloo startup companies faced the Dragons on CBC’s Dragons Den during the all-student episode. The student founders showcased their stuff and got great exposure and feedback from some of Canada’s most intimidating TV personalities.
First up were Rohan Mahimker and Alexander Peters, cofounders of website SMARTeacher.ca. They started this business as their fourth year design project in the Mechatronics program at the University of Waterloo and wanted to see what the Dragons had to say about it. They auditioned and only heard back 72 hours before the show, leaving them with little time to prepare.
Despite the last minute preparation, the two University of Waterloo students were ready to pitch their business. SMARTeacher.ca is an online interactive, educational game which has the ability to respond to a child’s emotions to change the level of difficulty of the game and to improve their learning curve.
Rohan and Alexander used their own experiences learning as children, with education centres like Kumon, to shape the way the game works. They see teaching children as an area that can be greatly improved, so they created this game and its wireless biosensor which responds to a child’s emotions. This sensor lets the game know if the child playing is engaged, bored, or irritated, which allows the game to adjust the academic level of questions.
Even though some of the Dragons showed interest, with Arlene Dickinson, marketing professional and CEO of Venture Communications, specifically being captivated by the student startup, SMARTeacher.ca did not receive any offers from the Dragons. Although they left with no offers, going to the den helped Rohan and Alexander get the company to where it is today. In the last 5 months, SMARTeacher has hired 8 more employees and gained 1,000 users, and they’re continuing to expand their company.
After SMARTeacher.ca, the Dragons called upon Hongwei Liu and Desmond Cho of MappedIn.
In Summer 2010, Hongwei was an electrical engineering student at the University of Waterloo who had just came off a work term at RIM. Soon after, he applied to live in the university’s VeloCity Residence, a dorm where 70 entrepreneurially inclined students live each term. In the residence during Brainstorming Week, Hongwei decided he wanted to work on “Google Maps for indoor places.” He came up with the idea for MappedIn and worked with co-founders and fellow University of Waterloo students, Leander Lee and Mitchell Butler, while in the residence. The startup pitched their idea at the VeloCity Venture Fund, a contest that gives $25,000 to four student tech startups every term. MappedIn won and received $25,000 to kickstart their business. Since, they’ve been working in the VeloCity Garage, a workspace in the Communitech Hub in downtown Kitchener.
Hongwei and Desmond were excited and ready to pitch their startup business to the Dragons. They pitched MappedIn as Google Maps for indoor places. They create indoor navigation systems and apps for inside public locations like malls, airports, and schools and went in asking the Dragons for $150,000 for 10% equity.
MappedIn has gained traction already – they have an app and multiple navigational kiosks in Conestoga Mall in Waterloo. Their goal is to expand to all malls in North America, and from there, to expand to other indoor locations.
Hongwei and Desmond impressed the Dragons. After they told them that Desmond sold his first web company when he was 9 years old for $50,000, all of the Dragons wanted to get in with this great team. Both UW students were ecstatic and went behind closed doors to decide what they wanted to do with the many offers they received.
They ended up going with three of the Dragons: Bruce Croxon, an early stage digital investor, Kevin O’Leary, a Canadian entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and investor, as well as Jim Treliving, the chairman and founder of Boston Pizza restaurants, for $375,000 for 25% equity in the business.
MappedIn gained some great exposure from the show, but in due diligence, the deal did not go through. Instead of going with the Dragons, MappedIn chose a company called Esri Canada to work with. Esri Canada, an established leader in mapping software, is now a partner and investor of MappedIn. Hongwei and Desmond continue to work in the VeloCity Garage, working hard to expand their business every day.
Both SMARTeacher.ca and MappedIn represented the University of Waterloo well on the show. They showcased their interesting ideas with confidence and there are big things in both companies’ futures.
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