This session with BDO will be open to all Regional Innovation Centre Clients and is offered in collaboration with Haltech and Innovation Factory. You must be registered with a Regional Innovation Centre to participate-if you are not currently registered with any, register here.

Ideal Audience: validation/MVP stage technology startups

Goal: for participants to understand the differences between various startup funding sources, including government programs, self/friends and family, angel or seed funding, and early revenue. Learn which you should prioritize and what channels are best suited for your venture.

Speakers:

Jamie Barron, Partner, Technology and Life Sciences at BDO Canada LLP Jamie is a Partner in BDO’s Burlington office, with over 20 years of professional experience providing audit and advisory services to innovation-based high growth companies. Jamie has served clients in a wide range of industries, including TLS (Technology, Life Sciences and Software) and advanced manufacturing. He has successfully assisted clients with complex financial reporting requirements, mergers and acquisitions and capital raise transactions. Jamie leads BDO’s Toronto West TLS Group. He is involved in the community through his Chairmanship of Haltech Regional Innovation Centre and his extensive involvement in the innovation eco-system across Ontario.

Richard Burdeniuk, Senior Manager at BDO Canada LLP Richard leads the GTA’s technology, media & life sciences team in BDO’s Advisory Services Practice. He specializes in government incentive programs, particularly tax credits to fund growth and innovation. Richard has spent 12 years traveling across Canada helping companies reconcile their work with the government’s expectations. The Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) program is one of the more controversial CRA programs and he has participated in CRA policy development, and managed CRA relations in hundreds of CRA reviews. His experience in private sector entrepreneurship and R&D helps him appreciate an owner operator’s bottom line while also applying the scientific know-how within the conventions accountants and lawyers require. As an entrepreneur, Richard developed software technologies for distributed computation, image recognition, and Geographic Information Systems. He has worked with Boeing, Berkshire Hathaway Companies, garage.com, and The Ontario Geological Survey.