Ten Startups on Vancouver Island Recognized for Innovation and Potential

Douglas magazine this month released its annual list of innovative businesses to watch.

Established in 2006 by Page One Publishing, Douglas is a business magazine and media brand based on Vancouver Island.

The magazine recently hosted a gala at the Davinci Centre to announce the winners of its annual “10 to Watch Awards.”

Now in their 16th year, the 10 to Watch Awards celebrate local startups that demonstrate exceptional potential for growth and success in their field.

“The 10 to Watch Awards recognize local entrepreneurship and the innovators who have pushed boundaries to create some of this region’s most exciting new businesses,” remarked Lise Gyorkos, who serves as president of Page One.

The list was selected by an independent panel of six local business leaders, and the winners span a range of industries, from clean tech to health tech to finance.

The list includes HiBoop, a Victoria-based startup seeking to reduce wait times for individuals and providers by providing a preliminary assessment for issues like anxiety, depression, and attention defectiveness disorder.

Canadians’ self-rated mental health has declined since 2015, according to Statistics Canada, with one-in-five Canadians now requiring access to mental healthcare. And yet access to healthcare has also been sliding across the country as wait times continue to rise amid an expanding general population outpacing the growth of doctors.

HiBoop’s Clinical Pilot Program, unveiled in collaboration with The Healing Institute at Forbidden Plateau, is currently in test mode as the team gathers feedback around user experience, assessment accuracy, and functionality. The startup’s assessment tool helps professionals diagnose conditions by simplifying the process, allowing patients to be assessed remotely while providing clinicians with insights to guide treatment plans.

There’s also Swordfish Energy, whose novel underwater hydro-kinetic device “may be the most ecologically friendly industrial-level turbine in the entire energy industry,” and Nationsfirst, which wants to “unlock Indigenous capital through blockchain technologies,” according to their websites.

The full 10 to Watch is listed below.

• Conju
• HiBoop
• Intlabs
• Revyn Medical Technologies
• Salyx Medical
• Swordfish Energy
• Eclective Coworking
• Regenerative Capital
• Holocene Distilling Project
• Nationsfirst Technologies

Vancouver Island’s tech and startup ecosystem has been growing steadily, data shows.