Monday, June 03, 2013

FedDev Q4: TribeHR, big contributions in Woodstock and Brampton ... and a lot of community infrastructure

After spending the last year focused on helping businesses, FedDev turned its attention back to infrastructure for its new contributions in the period ended March 31.

With the rollout of the Community Infrastructure Improvement Fund, there was a ton of activity disclosed in the quarter, with over 100 projects funded in Southwestern Ontario alone. The largest was a $775,224 toward the City of Waterloo's upgrade of Waterloo Park. You can see the full list of funded projects.

There were only three new disclosed repayable contributions for Southwestern Ontario businesses in the quarter.

First, there was the $542,399 in Investing in Business Innovation funding for Kitchener's TribeHR that was announced not long after it happened (still a rarity with government funding of all kinds).

The other two were large contributions under FedDev's Prosperity Initiative—$2.5 million to Woodstock's NASG Canada (North American Stamping Group) and another $2.5 million for a company in Brantford listed as 1818155 Ontario Inc. (a Google search only turned up sketchy details and no operating name).

And that was it for the quarter.

Across the province, the largest new contribution was $2.7 million for the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, also through the Prosperity Initiative program. That funding was announced a couple of weeks ago.

Can Windsor use a non-snub to energize a focus on innovation?

OMG, did you hear? There's a new $100 million "Innovation SuperCorridor" initiative from the province introduced in the budget...