Over 300 attendees gather for DMZ's sixth annual Black Innovation Summit, championing Black founders as a driver of economic growth. GNW

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Over 300 attendees gather for DMZ’s sixth annual Black Innovation Summit, championing Black founders as a driver of economic growth.

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Toronto, Oct. 29, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Toronto Metropolitan University’s DMZ held its sixth annual Black Innovation Summit presented by Scotiabank, where 10 Black-led startups from across Canada pitched their businesses for a chance to secure $170,000 in funding to accelerate their growth.

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The Summit is the marquee event for DMZ’s Black Innovation Programs (BIP), launched in 2019 as the first initiative of its kind in Canada. Since then, BIP has supported more than 2,500 Black founders and distributed over $3.2 million in grants and services. 

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This year’s pitch competition featured 10 Black-led startups from across Canada spanning AI, cleantech, edtech, fintech, health tech, medtech and enterprise software. Half of the finalist companies were women-led, with founders representing communities across the country. Together, the cohort showcased the diversity of talent and entrepreneurial ambition driving Canada’s Black tech ecosystem forward.

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Under the returning theme ‘Black Means Business’, the Summit welcomed more than 300 guests from the Black entrepreneurial community to celebrate Black excellence and reinforce a clear message: investing in Black founders is a strategic imperative that drives economic growth and powers the startup economy. 
This year’s Summit highlighted the impact of past investments, welcoming back David Owasi, CEO of OutreachGenius and recipient of the top investment prize at the 2025 Black Innovation Summit. Since securing the investment last year, Owasi has gone on to raise a $1.7 million funding round. 
Returning to the stage, he shared insights from his fundraising journey, including the realities of raising capital and what it takes to secure investment. He was joined by Lise Birikundavyi, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of BKR Capital, who brought an investor’s perspective on what makes a startup investment-ready and where new opportunities are emerging for Black founders in Canada.

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The investments were led by DMZ Ventures, DMZ’s for-profit arm, and the grants were made possible by the Black Founders Network and Pitch Better. The investment funds are now proceeding to finalize investment terms. 

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“This was my first time ever pitching, so walking away with this outcome means a lot,” said Josh Ekundayo, Co-Founder and CEO of Hey Cleo. “The Black Innovation Summit put us in front of investors and a community that believes in what we’re building, and the DMZ team has backed us at every step. We plan to use this funding to grow our engineering team so we can keep building out the platform.”