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Applicationss are closed

Get your startup investment ready and pitch for prize money

totalling $300,000

SheBoot is a bootcamp that prepares women founders to pitch their business and secure investment.

Applications are now closed. They will open again in spring 2024.

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As featured in

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A women-led bootcamp for women-led businesses

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Together, Capital Angel Network and Invest Ottawa built this bootcamp to help scalable technology and technology-enabled women-led businesses tackle tough challenges like access to capital & access to mentors

Our objectives

1. To help more women founders access capital

2. Have more women investing in startups

Julie MacDonnell
“The SheBoot investment and FedDev funding we received through the program put us in a position where we could spend extra time choosing our investment partners… If we hadn’t had that influx of money, we would have been in a situation with no choice but to take the first investor in. It allowed us the time and space to be selective with who and how we partnered.” – Julie MacDonell, CEO & Co-founder of Haloo

Our Award-Winning

Graduates

Meet the impressive entrepreneurs who completed bootcamp, competed in the grand pitch finale and won a top award!

Julie MacDonnell

Haloo (formally Heirlume)

Inara Lalani

FemTherapeutics

Negin Ashouri

FemTherapeutics

Macarena Cataldo

Viridis Research Inc

Lianna Genovese

ImaginAble Solutions

Sarah Ruest

Haloo (formally Heirlume)

Alida Burke

The Growcer

Audrey Bond

Vaultt

Vanessa de Waal

Flöka

Cassie Myers

Lunaria

Shannon Ferguson

FanSaves

Simone Godbout

Marlow

Nadia Ladak

Marlow

What to

Expect

Build the skills, network, and pitch your business needs to land investment.

Bootcamp takes place over two months in the Fall. If accepted, you’ll join a cohort and commit a minimum of one day per week to the program, which includes interactive group training workshops, weekly practice sessions to perfect your business pitch, one-on-one mentor meetings and investor introductions. Beyond bootcamp, you can anticipate an additional nine months+ of continued support; a dedicated coach and ghost board will work with you to help maintain your momentum and support you throughout your investment journey. 

The fine details are to come, but here’s what you can count on: 

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Investor introductions

The Capital Angel Network is a group of angel investors committed to building the region’s entrepreneurial community. Get to know their members and be introduced to their broader network, which extends across and far beyond Ottawa’s ecosystem.

Business coaching

Be matched with a dedicated business coach who works as your program guide. They will:

  • Get to know you and your business
  • Keep you accountable and focused
  • Ask tough questions
  • Help make connections
    And, more!
Specialized mentorship

Work with mentors with specialized skills during hands-on sessions. These are experienced: 

  • Investors
  • Accountants
  • Lawyers
  • Entrepreneurs
  • Marketers
  • And, more!
Master-level workshops

Participate in top-tier training workshops with a curriculum is designed to help you secure investment. The subjects covered include:

  • Financial Forecasting
  • Pitching
  • Due Diligence
  • Go-to-Market Plan
  • And, more!
Continued support

SheBoot support continues well beyond the two-month-long bootcamp. For an additional nine months+, every graduate is paired with a coach and ghost board. Like an advisory board, the ghost board is a group of high-profile professionals that lend their expertise, provide advice and make recommendations. But unique to your SheBoot ghost board, your advisors will apply an investment lens and specially focus on supporting your growth and investment plan.

A peer network

Go through the training with peers who get it and finish the program with a robust network of ambitious game-changers like you.

SheBoot isn’t just a bootcamp, it’s a community. 

Why The Name SheBoot?

Urban dictionary defines SheBoot as “a film or television property that rebooted and recast with women in roles played by men in the original material.” This production and cast are women-led.
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The Bootcamp

SheBoot is designed and delivered by leading women from across our ecosystem: a collective of seasoned entrepreneurs, angel investors, and all-around success experts. Founders accepted into the program learn from these high-achieving trailblazers and benefit from their ongoing support. They also build a powerful network of peers – fellow entrepreneurs who want to see you succeed.

Eligibility

Is this the program for you?

  • Apply if your startup is:
    Women-led, meaning a woman has significant ownership of the business (33% minimum) and holds the title of CEO, COO or CTO;
  • Innovative, scalable, and a tech or tech-enabled startup;
  • Headquartered in Canada;
  • Showing initial signs of traction, i.e. customer feedback, beta tested or generating revenue;
  • Looking for support and mentorship;
  • Ready to put insight into action; and
  • Eager to join a founder community.
Applications are now closed

The Grand Pitch Finale

Bootcamp takes place over two months in the Fall and concludes with a pitch competition. During the pitch competition, SheBoot graduates pitch their business to the SheBoot Investor group, a national group of women investors, who select the winners. The pitch finale grand prize is a minimum of $150,000 in investment, with the prize money awarded totaling $300,000 in equity-based funding.

Additional Information

The SheBoot Investor ground awards the top prize money in the form of a convertible loan. A convertible loan is a short-term debt that converts into equity. The basic terms are: 

  • An interest rate of 8% per annum
  • A discount rate of 20%
  • Terms of 5 years
  • Capped price of a minimum of $2.5 million CDN

Final terms are dependent on your business. 

Don’t count yourself out.

Just like every business, we know every situation is unique. If you’re unsure your company qualifies for SheBoot, don’t give up – get in touch.
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Here for all

Women

When we use the term “women,” we refer to all individuals who identify as women. This includes women of colour, transgender women, and women with gender-diverse identities, including non-binary folks and gender non-conforming women (as we know, gender is fluid and can change throughout one’s lifetime). These women have historically and systemically been excluded from many mainstream programs, services and opportunities. 

At SheBoot, we are making a concerted effort to prioritize equity, access and inclusion in everything we do. Our goal is to ensure that anyone who would like to access programs and services truly feels welcome and supported. We recognize that every founder has unique needs and lives experience and that, in some cases, we are not currently well-equipped to address these unique needs. 

At SheBoot, we still need to systemically assess how to enhance our programming and advisory to support all founders best. As an example, our advisors and program teams have not yet received training to help them address the needs of racialized and gender-diverse founders. However, this is now in process at Invest Ottawa, a SheBoot founding organization. 

Leveraging the diversity of our partners and networks, their internal DEI experts and our generous, committed community, we will do our best to support the needs of all participants. We welcome all women to SheBoot and are committed to listening, learning and helping every founder to thrive.


SheBoot

Partners

We extend sincere thanks to our strategic partners that help make SheBoot possible.

Mistral Ventures logo
Welch LLP logo
7 Bayview Station Rd, Ottawa, ON K1Y 2C5

[email protected]

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