Lianna Genovese, the founder of ImaginAble Solutions and a recent graduate of McMaster’s biomedical and mechanical engineering program, has been accepted to the third cohort of SheBoot. Built by the Capital Angel Network (CAN) and Invest Ottawa, SheBoot is a six-week-long Ottawa-based boot camp to help scalable technology and technology-enabled women-led businesses tackle tough challenges like access to capital and access to mentors. The Forge client is impacting people living with limited hand function through her product Guided HandsTM, an assistive device allowing individuals to write, paint, draw and access technology.
Genovese came up with the innovative idea behind the assistive device during one of her class projects. After completing the project, Genovese introduced the initial prototype to industry professionals and potential users, including a young girl with cerebral palsy. The young girl was able to paint for the first time and excitedly asked her mother to purchase the device for her. At that moment, Lianna knew that this was her true passion and went on to launch ImaginAble Solutions with assistance from The Forge and its programs.
During the first eight months of 2021, companies with solely female founders raised only 2.2 percent of all venture funding, down from 2.3 percent in 2020, and 3.3 percent in 2019 according to Crunchbase data in the United States. As of July 2022, previous SheBoot graduates have raised or acquired more than CDN $11 million, with support from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP) and 30 women angel investors.
“It is an honour to be amongst such talented and passionate women in the SHEBOOT program especially as ImaginAble Solutions starts fundraising for our pre-seed round this Fall!” said Genovese.