Canada’s defence sector is opening, and female founders are almost absent from it.
Grow Now – Defence Pathways is an orientation program for female founders deciding whether defence is their next market. Canada is mid-way through its largest defence industrial expansion in decades, yet female founders remain almost entirely absent from that growth, not because their technology isn’t ready, but because the pathway in is opaque, and no existing Canadian program meets founders before they commit.
Grow Now – Defence Pathways extends CWB’s expertise in working with women tech founders to help fill that gap: it meets validated commercial founders at the decision point and equips them to determine – with evidence, not assumption – whether a defence application exists within the technology they have already built, without stepping away from the commercial trajectory that got them here.
Built for founders at the decision point. All six criteria must be met:
- Canadian Female founder – a minimum of 50% women owned business, registered in Canada
- Incorporated and operating fulltime
- Technology Based Venture
- TRL4 or above (TRL 7–8 founders are welcome to apply in the pilot (a screener call assesses whether program content fits or a downstream referral suits better). Health-tech below TRL 4 with a demonstrated proof of concept, a clear clinical pathway, and dual-use potential may be considered case-by-case)
- Have a validated commercial technology
- Be willing to commit a minimum of 5 hours per week to 12 week program including weekly facilitated group sessions.
A 12-week virtual orientation, not a procurement program. Delivered as a national cohort across three arcs: Defence Orientation; Capability Translation, and Ecosystem Navigation. You will participate in expert-led workshops, a national partner showcase, and 1:1 advisory check-ins. Founders learn how procurement works, how to describe commercial technology in defence language, and how to assess whether a genuine opportunity exists.
By the end of the program, participants will be able to:
- Explain how Canada’s defence procurement, funding, export-control and IP landscape works, and identify relevant entry points for their own venture.
- Translate their commercial technology into defence-capability language and produce a written capability statement.
- State their own individualized sector-fit tier (A / B / C) with supporting rationale.
- Articulate a concrete, time-bounded 90-day action plan for their chosen next step.
Every Founder will walk away with…
- Defence Market Literacy
- Capability Statement
- Sector-Fit Assessment
- 90-Day Action Plan
