The University of Toronto’s Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) accelerator program has announced the graduates of their latest Space Stream cohort.
This year, the cohort included two companies from Canada: NordSpace and PARATUS Medical Inc.
Creative Destruction Lab
The CDL’s Space Stream and its graduates have been the subject of SpaceQ coverage over the years, starting from its first dedicated cohort in 2018/2019. Several notable Canadian graduates include Wyvern, Reaction Dynamics, Obruta Space Systems, Connektica, Leap Biosystems, and Mission Control Space Services.
The stream has made some significant changes over that time, especially in its move to become a “global” stream that unites a number of different CDL satellites: including CDL-Toronto, CDL-Paris, CDL-Texas and CDL-Milan. Yet at its core, it is still basically the same: a nine-month-long, five-round process where a number of different companies related to a given sector work with experienced mentors within that sector to refine their business models and products.
Unlike many accelerators, the CDL actually eliminates many (or even most) of the companies that start the process. Each round has meetings where companies’ progress and development are presented at a large meeting of the mentors, and mentors decide which companies move on to the next round and which are eliminated from the accelerator process.
Details on this process are kept largely confidential, however, with neither mentors nor founders openly discussing the complete process of evaluation and selection. Notably, however, elimination is not necessarily permanent; some companies (like Obruta Space Solutions) actually come back and graduate the program in a later year.
Also unlike many accelerator programs, CDL does not necessarily come with investment into the company, though successfully graduating CDL can serve as a green light for investment in a company. Due to its unique length and structure, however, it can often become complementary to accelerator programs (like Y Combinator) that are both shorter and more focused on raising investment.
CDL’s Canadian Graduates
This year, sixteen companies graduated, including the two from Canada: NordSpace and PARATUS Medical Systems.
NordSpace has featured in SpaceQ coverage, as part of the growing ecosystem of companies focused on developing sovereign Canadian launch capacity. The company is working on developing both suborbital and orbital rockets: the suborbital Taiga rocket, and the orbital Tundra rocket. NordSpace has been successfully performing static-fire tests on their Taiga suborbital rocket and its kerosene/LOx “Hadfield” engines named after famous Canadian astronaut (and CDL Space Stream founder) Col. Chris Hadfield.
This has created an interesting situation in Canada, with two potential launch providers focused on two different kinds of propulsion systems. NordSpace is the only company in Canada developing liquid-fueled rockets, as competitor Reaction Dynamics is focused on hybrid rockets that use solid fuel and a liquid oxidizer. Both companies recently released videos of static fire rocket engine tests, with NordSpace saying that their seven-second test “successfully deliver[ed] nominal thrust, active cooling, and impulse results.” Reaction Dynamics had a successful 33-second test of their RE-102 hybrid engine, saying that it “performed beautifully”.
One key difference, however, is in where the rockets will be launched. Reaction Dynamics will be performing their initial suborbital rocket test in Australia later this year, with an eye to performing further testing at Maritime Launch Services’ Spaceport Nova Scotia afterwards. NordSpace, however, has been developing their own spaceport on the southeastern Atlantic shore of Newfoundland and Labrador.
This has meant that NordSpace has actually gotten into two businesses: launching payloads, and running a spaceport, though NordSpace founder and CEO Rahul Goel told SpaceQ that “the spaceport division of NordSpace does not interfere with our technical work on the rocket or space systems programs as it is managed entirely by a separate team within NordSpace.”
There are other irons in the fire, too: NordSpace organized the inaugural Canadian Space Launch Conference this past April, where Goel said to attendees that the Avro Arrow was a big inspiration for his drive to develop sovereign Canadian launch. At the same event, Goel also announced a partnership with LeoLabs to build Canada’s “first space domain awareness capability,” and the ongoing development of space-system and satellite product lines to turn NordSpace into “an end-to-end space missions company.”
Considering all of this, it’s even more impressive that NordSpace was able to also successfully navigate the Creative Destruction Lab process—though it may well be the influence of CDL’s mentorship process that helped Goel develop and refine this end-to-end vision.
The other Canadian graduate is PARATUS Medical, developers of the EZResus app that helps medical personnel get information they need to perform quick and effective resuscitations on patients. The company has since expanded to a broader focus on developing a remote-first “complete medical assistant” to help with medical emergencies.
The company has been working on developing “the next generation of Connected Care Medical Modules” (C2M2) for the CSA, called A.D.A.M.S. (ADvanced Astronaut Medical Support.) They were awarded up to $650,000 from the CSA in late 2024 to develop the prototype.
PARATUS delivered the prototypes to the CSA last April. In the release, the company said that it was “the hardest we have worked in the life of our young organization”, but that they are proud about “laying the foundation for the Space Clinical Decision Support System of tomorrow.”
The Rest of the CDL Graduates
Here are the other non-Canadian graduates of the cohort:
- ADAM Aerospace, from Milwaukee, is a defense-focused company featuring blockchain-based technology that (according to their LinkedIn) “focuses on military use cases,” and is aimed at making “data transfer and verification more secure, universal, and efficient.”
- London’s Asteroid Mining Corporation is the “UK’s first space mining company,” and is focused on developing technologies for the extraction and processing of materials from asteroids. They’re currently working on a robotic platform called the Space Cargo and Reconnaissance Explorer, or SCAR-E, in collaboration with Tohoku University Space Robotics Lab (SRL) in Japan.
- AstroTeq.ai, from Rzeszów, Poland, uses cosmic radiation, SAR, and thermal anomalies as tools for earthquake prediction, claiming that they have predicted six earthquakes in advance in places like Greece and Turkey.
- BlueCubed focuses on small optical intersatellite link (OISL) terminals, which allow for laser-based communications between small satellites. Rebel Space Technologies’ Carol Zanmiller (who was one of the CDL’s mentors for BlueCubed) said that the technology promises to “deliver Ethernet-like connectivity…without the RF licensing burden.”
- California-based Cambrian Works also has space-based communications offerings, with their “GigRouter” router and edge communications device, but is also working on technology for the U.S. Space Force and Air Force for de-spinning satellites.
- Germany’s ISPTech might sound like another communications company, but it actually stands for InSpacePropulsion. The company is working on propulsion systems based on non-toxic HyNOx propellant; a mixture of nitrous oxide and ethane. According to ISPTech, HyNOx has a “high vapor pressure in the relevant temperature range,” there “is no need for a pressurization system,” which simplifies the propulsion system.
- Seattle’s Juno Propulsion is also focused on propulsion—hence the name—but their focus is on rotating detonation engines. According to Juno, their propulsion systems rely on rotating “detonation waves,” which “rotate around the engine and explosively burn the fuel and oxidizer.” They claim that these detonation waves “release more energy than today’s engines, achieving higher specific impulses.” Several other companies are working on RDEs, as are NASA and JAXA.
- Colorado-based LEAP Space is working on “rapid-response, mass-producible launch solutions” focused on “on-demand launch for national security, commercial payloads, and point-to-point logistics.” The company is currently preparing for testing of its Bullfrog sounding rocket at Spaceport America.
- Lodestar Space is a space robotics company, focused on building “in-orbit interaction capabilities” that will allow the US Space Force to “engage with any unknown object.” More specifically, posting on LinkedIn suggests that this at least partially consists of robotic capture systems.
- Marble Imaging, based out of Bremen, Germany, is building a constellation of earth observation satellites using multispectral imaging, and provides analytics focused on “maritime aquaculture, coastline and oil spill detection and monitoring as well as insights about deforestation [and] soil moisture.” Their first satellite is scheduled to be launched in 2026.
- O Analytics “offers precision image processing and data fusion expertise to address the most complex space domain awareness.” Their technology is focused on discovering space objects within imperfect imagery, and especially managing the presence of “mega constellations of satellites which intensify the need to detect and clearly discriminate between their types.”
- Orbital Paradigm, from Madrid Space, is another company focused on propulsion; but instead of launch, the goal of the company is to “provide agile microgravity and Earth return transportation for the upcoming in-space industry” through their Kestral space return vehicle.
- Parsimoni, from France, is building “SpaceOS”; the first “Secure by Design” OS focused specifically on efficiency and security, one that they say is “up to 20x smaller than traditional systems” by being built specifically for satellite payloads.
- Spatiam of Allan, Texas is another space communications company. They’re seeking to become “the leading Interplanetary Service Provider” by building “Delay and Disruption Tolerant Networks” that can help connect Earth to LEO, the Moon, and beyond.
