Jun 18, 8:30 – 10:00 PM (UTC)
Graffiti Market, 137 Glasgow Street, Kitchener, N2G 4X8
Hi, this is Andrew. We are officially launching the Startup Grind KW chapter, in order to connect local KW and Southwest...
Hi, this is Andrew.
We are officially launching the Startup Grind KW chapter, in order to connect local KW and Southwestern Ontario startups to a global network of 600 chapters in over 150 countries, specifically to help you solve the hardest thing; finding your first real-world customers.
Who this is for:
Founders: This is for founders building in hard tech with long sales cycles, where every connection counts, every opportunity is important, every customer is precious, and every relationship needs to be treated with the utmost respect.
So if you're operating in one of six critical technology areas (robotics, AI, cybersecurity, quantum, blockchain, or advanced networks like 5G) and you need to validate your product with a real customer who's going to give you real, hard feedback, then we'd like to hear from you and get your ideas on how to shape the future of this chapter.
Operators: Now, if you're on the other side and you're a mature business, and you're seeing demand for your product grow, and you want to stay on the innovation curve, then we want to hear from you too, because we want to vet and validate which founders to connect you with.
Why now? In general, products are still hard to build even with AI, and Kitchener-Waterloo and Southwestern Ontario have an amazing history of building and innovating new infrastructure and hard tech solutions. But the pace and urgency of developing a global network for Kitchener-Waterloo is probably the most important it's been in decades. So we're excited to launch the chapter.
Anything we do here is designed to augment and grow the community, and help you feed into the existing ecosystem by finding connections all over the world, because there's no reason KW and Southwestern Ontario shouldn't be one of the most globally innovative, respected, connected geographies.
We value making deep friendships over contacts, giving first and freely over taking, and helping others way before helping ourselves. So if this sounds like something you'd like to be a part of, come and join us. We've got a great team, a few extra spots, and we're kicking this thing off for real.
Sincerely,
Andrew Witchell
Director StartupGrind Kitchener/Waterloo
Thursday, June 18, 2026
8:30 PM – 10:00 PM (UTC)
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