Suspension of cleantech funding blow to Canada's burgeoning industry
About two years ago, Gillian Holcroft co-founded a company to sell two patented technologies that would allow miners to produce and recycle graphite in an environmentally friendly manner.
As a company that spun out of Kingston Process Metallurgy Inc., Holcroft’s Green Graphite Technologies Inc. was on the industry’s radar, but still taking baby steps in 2021 and relatively unknown in the sector. She and her team needed some recognition.
That’s when funding through the federal government’s Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) came into play. The company was approved in July last year to receive $1.1 million from the arm’s-length foundation, which was founded by the federal government in 2001 to advance clean technology innovation in Canada.
“Having that financial support from SDTC and having them basically believe in our project and our team, we were able to attract others. It was a catalyst,” Holcroft said. “It’s like a green seal of approval that your technology is real, and that gives confidence to the industry.”
Earlier this week, Green Graphite closed a funding deal that was twice as much, $2.1 million, from BDC Capital’s Climate Tech Fund and the Sustainable Chemistry Alliance. Holcroft said if it wasn’t for the SDTC’s “painful” due diligence, which included several interviews and checks, her company would not have been approved for the much higher funding they sealed this week.
“Because they knew that we went through the SDTC due diligence, they knew that we had our house in order,” she said. “Their (SDTC) due diligence is pretty intense. It makes companies like ours on the path to make sure that we have all our decks lined up.”
But funding through the SDTC was temporarily suspended by Industry Minister
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