What makes Kyle Briggs such a strong mentor for rising entrepreneurs? He once walked in their shoes.
During his PhD at uOttawa under the supervision of Vincent Tabard-Cossa, physics professor and vice-dean of innovation and strategic partnerships, Briggs worked on nanopores. These tiny holes can detect individual molecules by measuring changes in electrical signals as they pass through. Beyond the physics lab, nanopores can be used to identify disease indicators in biological samples, such as blood, enabling earlier detection.
Briggs was part of the uOttawa research team that showed nanopores could be fabricated using a simple nine-volt battery rather than drilling with expensive electron microscopes, dramatically reducing the cost of the technology. After eight years of research, that breakthrough led him to co-found Northern Nanopore Instruments in 2020. The company developed nanopore fabrication tools for researchers in academia and industry. Oxford Nanopore Technologies later acquired it.
Paying it forward
Briggs credits his successful transition from researcher to entrepreneur not only to the discovery but also to the mentors and innovation community that supported him along the way. This especially includes Tabard-Cossa, who brought his own entrepreneurial experience into the lab. In 2024, Briggs was offered the role of entrepreneur in residence at the Faculty of Science, and he jumped at the opportunity to give back.
“I found that it’s an incredibly rewarding experience to be able to share some of the mistakes I made in the hopes that the next generation will have an easier time,” Briggs says.
Streamlining the path from lab to startup
After commercializing his own research and mentoring entrepreneurs across Canada, Briggs began noticing recurring barriers within the country’s innovation ecosystem.
“Every university has a different IP policy. Every licence needs to be constructed from scratch. It’s a time-consuming and expensive process,” he says.
According to Briggs, the current research commercialization system can delay promising research and prevent it from making the leap from the lab to the marketplace.
To address this issue, Briggs co-developed the Simple Agreement for Innovation Licensing (SAIL) alongside collaborators David Durand and Rami Alhamad. The streamlined licensing framework reduces the financial and administrative hurdles early-stage startups face. At the same time, it aligns the incentives for universities and founders, making it easier to commercialize research.
SAIL is gaining momentum, with several universities exploring pilot projects. Meanwhile, Briggs continues to drive change through his work with CanInnovate, a blog focused on articulating practical policy solutions to the challenges facing Canadian innovators.
“I found that it’s an incredibly rewarding experience to be able to share some of the mistakes I made in the hopes that the next generation will have an easier time.”
Kyle Briggs
— Entrepreneur in Residence
No risk, no reward
Beyond licensing reform, Briggs argues that Canada must rethink its relationship to risk when it comes to the innovation investment process:
“In Canada, we often try to pick winners too early, at a stage when success is nearly impossible to predict. This mindset drives underperformance, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of risk intolerance: risk intolerance leads to underinvestment, which leads to underperformance, which in turn justifies even more risk intolerance. And so, the cycle continues.”
Successful innovation ecosystems depend on investing broadly across many emerging technologies. This approach recognizes that while most ventures will fail, the few that succeed can generate enough value to outweigh the losses. That’s where the SAIL Fund comes in. Co-founded by Briggs, the SAIL Fund is a not-for-profit investment fund. It provides patient capital — long-term funding that prioritizes impact over quick financial returns — to early-stage startups developing ideas from publicly funded research.
His outstanding contributions to Canadian entrepreneurship and innovation recently earned him recognition as one of the Ottawa Business Journal and Ottawa Board of Trade’s 2026 Forty Under 40.
Ultimately, for Briggs, embracing uncertainty is essential, both for innovation policy and for entrepreneurs themselves:
“Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. If you can do that, then it becomes an incredible driver for personal growth.”