Today's interview is with Ana F. Gonzalez Guerrero, Senior Manager, Climate & Cities, MaRS Discovery District.
What is MaRS Discovery District?
What Is MaRS Discovery District, And What Inspired Its Creation?
Ana Gonzalez Guerrero - MaRS Discovery District is North America’s largest urban innovation hub, located in Toronto, Canada. It was founded in 2000 seeking to bridge the gap between groundbreaking Canadian research and market impact. At its core, MaRS aims to support Canadian entrepreneurs tackling the world’s most pressing challenges in sectors like health, fintech, and importantly – climate change. The inspiration for MaRS came from recognizing Canada’s untapped potential in commercializing research from its academic and scientific communities. The vision was and continues to be the creation of a collaborative environment where startups, researchers, investors, and corporate partners could coalesce to drive innovation, societal progress, and economic growth.
Start-Up Support
Can You Elaborate On The Types Of Direct Support MaRS Provides To Startups, And How These Services Impact Their Growth And Success?
Ana Gonzalez Guerrero - MaRS offers a comprehensive suite of support services tailored to the needs of early-stage and scaling startups. This includes expert advisory services, where entrepreneurs can access personalized guidance from industry professionals. We also connect startups with funding opportunities through our extensive network of investors (e.g. our MaRS VC Syndicate) and when relevant, government grants. Entrepreneurs can also access workshops, market intelligence reports, and other resources that address critical areas such as business strategy, customer acquisition, and product development. Additionally, MaRS can provide physical workspace options and access to specialized facilities, like labs and prototyping centers. By facilitating access to capital, talent, and strategic partners, MaRS significantly enhances a startup’s ability to innovate, scale, and succeed in competitive markets.
MaRS Accomplishments
What Recent Accomplishments Or Announcements Are You Most Proud Of At MaRS?
Ana Gonzalez Guerrero - This year the MaRS Climate Impact conference featured adaptation as a key theme. For two days, over 600 in-person attendees and 1200 online participants heard from a diverse set of experts on topics ranging from investment in adaptation, to wildfires, preparing cities for floods, and innovation in the food and agriculture space. We are also excited that after months of stakeholder consultations on our emerging adaptation technology - or AdapTech - strategy, we will be starting more active work to attract and support more adaptation and resilience ventures in 2025.
Trends & Technologies
What Trends Or Technologies Is MaRS Keeping A Close Eye On, And Why?
Ana Gonzalez Guerrero - MaRS is actively tracking key trends and technologies that are set to shape the future. In particular, we are focusing on understanding the AdapTech landscape in Canada: the innovators, the investors and the innovation adopters. Our country's vast geography plus the concentration of assets and people in certain areas, expose us to a wide range of hazards — wildfires, storms, floods, and extreme heat — resulting in varying levels of risk and expected impact across regions and industries. This diverse threat profile makes the exploration of adaptation technologies especially relevant to us. By staying at the forefront of these innovations, MaRS aims to equip entrepreneurs and stakeholders with the necessary tools to address the impacts of climate change, while continuing to support our existing decarbonization efforts.
Partnerships
What Kind Of Partnerships Does MaRS Forge With Investors, Governments, And Other Stakeholders To Facilitate Capital Flows?
Ana Gonzalez Guerrero - Collaboration with different ecosystem players is fundamental to MaRS’s mission, and we actively build strategic partnerships to unlock capital for innovation and increase adoption of technologies. We work closely with venture capital and growth equity firms, angel investors, debt providers, and corporate investment arms to ensure startups have access to a broad spectrum of funding options. MaRS also works together with different levels of government to develop and deliver programming that advances innovation, to facilitate the adoption of technologies emerging from MaRS, and when relevant - to connect entrepreneurs with grants. For our emerging adaptation work, we are seeking to support existing efforts to advance the mobilization of private capital towards resilience solutions, both for AdapTech but also to communities that require resources to advance resilience.
Primary Goals
Looking Ahead, What Are MaRS’ Primary Goals For The Next 12-18 Months, And How Do You Plan To Achieve Them?
Ana Gonzalez Guerrero - In the next year, it is our goal to launch the MaRS’s AdapTech program to help advance the adaptation technology ecosystem in Canada through a three pillar approach: 1) building the capacity of adaptation-focused ventures with specialized supports they need to grow 2) increasing the adoption of innovations at scale amongst the public and private sectors and 3) addressing the adaptation finance gap through the mobilization of more private capital towards adaptation solutions. We are excited to continue building partnerships and leveraging the existing work from collaborators such as Tailwind, while focusing on the Canadian context and needs.
Into The Future
What Message Would You Give Our Readers About The Most Important Things To Focus On In The Years Leading Up To 2030? What Are The Things That Should Be A Significant Focus For People And Decision-Makers In This Space?
Ana Gonzalez Guerrero - As we approach 2030, the urgency to address climate change and its impacts on people, nature and assets cannot be overstated. A few things come to mind as considerations for decision-makers in the space:
1. Adaptation should be viewed as complementary to mitigation, not as an alternative. We must resist narratives that frame these efforts as competing. Capital, innovation, and policy solutions are crucial for both adaptation and mitigation. And in many cases, those solutions tackle both adaptation and mitigation at the same time.
2. The role of the private sector in adaptation and resilience must be approached thoughtfully; there are risks associated with the unmanaged involvement of the private sector in an area that primarily seeks public benefit. The local circumstances in communities should uniquely determine the extent and interaction required between the public and private sectors to advance resilience. However, if engaged responsibly, the private sector can be pivotal in developing solutions (e.g. AdapTech ventures), adapting their own operations in coordination with communities, and closing the adaptation financing gap.
3. Mobilizing capital for direct, pure-play climate solutions is essential, but it's equally important to ensure that existing allocated capital, particularly for infrastructure investments, integrates adaptation considerations. On the other hand, we must continue to pay attention to where capital needs to stop going; financial flows into fossil fuels, potentially mal-adaptive activities, and false solutions that are incongruent with a pathway towards a low-carbon, climate resilient future (1)
(1) Dr. Nicola Ranger and Michael Mullan present the concept of climate resilience aligned finance in the following discussion paper (2021) and other publications since https://www.cgfi.ac.uk/2021/11/discussion-paper-aligning-finance-with-climate-resilient-development/
.png)
