Innovation Arena opens doors for health startups in Kitchener

The much-anticipated Innovation Arena opened its doors in downtown Kitchener Nov. 15 and is already filled with health startups.

It’s located in the technology centre at the corner of Victoria and Joseph Street, The 90,000 sq. ft.  Innovation Arena is also the new home of Velocity — the University of Waterloo’s (UW) flagship startup incubator.

One of those startups is HeadFirst Inc., which creates concussion evaluation tools for sports and health organizations. Its developed a test that uses saliva, similar to a COVID test, to see if someone has a concussion.

“That area’s kind of known as the innovation sort of intersection of Kitchener, with the Google office, Communitech, the Tannery and Velocity already being here but now this bigger building,” Oliver Aramini, research and development scientist, said.

HeadFirst began a pilot study at UW collecting saliva samples from athletes. They also attained a letter of interest from a global network of 500 concussion clinics where they hope to continue trials to go down regulatory path and then get Health Canada approval.

Aramini added the location couldn’t be any better, just steps away from the LRT and public transit.

“It allows collaboration between University of Waterloo and the Velocity incubator to be really seamless because its really easy to go back and forth.”

Kitchener’s Mayor, Berry Vrbanovic, was there to help unveil the new facility and announced a $8.5 million investment from the city.

“This project is part of Make it Kitchener 2.0, the city’s current economic development strategy and is the inaugural investment out of the $110 million fund associated with it,” said Vrbanovic.

“It’s a hub where education technology and startup expertise converge. The result is an environment that fosters innovation where the brightest minds can collaborate and push the boundaries in what is possible in health and other technology.”

The new facility will host enhanced support for founders, state-of-the-art product development labs, manufacturing equipment and places where startups can collaborate.