TORONTO – Ryerson University’s Viafoura placed first in the Road to Banff Venture Forum pitch competition last week at the Canada 3.0 digital media forum.
The company, a participant in Ryerson’s Digital Media Zone workspace for young entrepreneurs, competed against 50 other start-ups in an event designed for early stage companies to practice pitching their ideas. Co-founders Jesse Moeinifar and Ali Ghafour successfully presented their concept of increasing the level of engagement between news organizations or publications and their users through text, video and video debate.
“Leading up to the Canada 3.0 conference, the DMZ gave us the opportunity to run our business plan, pitch our key concepts and really hone in on the right messages” Moeinifar said in the press release. “So when we got in front of the judges at the competition, our ideas were streamlined and cohesive. The DMZ was instrumental in getting us started and getting us networking.”
The Viafoura execs won an all-expenses-paid trip to the company financing event Banff Venture Forum, plus a day of workshops and networking opportunities with venture capitalists from Canada and the United States.
