Demo Day 2025: Bold Founder Pitches Close Out The XX Summit
This year, Demo Day looked a little different, and a whole lot more electric. As the final session of The51’s inaugural XX Summit, Demo Day 2025 wasn’t just a pitch showcase. It was a full-circle moment: where insight met investment, and possibility turned palpable.
Hosted live at Platform Calgary on June 25, Demo Day brought the future to the stage with 21 visionary founders from Movement51’s Founder Lab, pitching their ventures after nine weeks of deep preparation, mentorship, and unapologetic ambition.
A New Chapter: Demo Day x XX Summit
For the first time ever, Demo Day took place within the programming of The51’s XX Summit, an all-day gathering of investors, innovators, and change agents building what’s next for the economy. Closing the day with Demo Day was intentional: it allowed the Summit's big conversations around capital, equity, and power to land with real-life action.
The energy in the room was unmistakable. 250 women - investors, funders, allies, and first-time supporters - gathered to listen, learn, and lean into the power of capital. Not just as cheques, but as catalytic belief.
About Founder Lab: Where Founders Meet Fuel
Powered by Movement51, Founder Lab is a 9-week venture acceleration program designed to prepare early-stage founders to raise capital. It’s where bold ideas are sharpened, narratives are refined, and founders grow into fundraisers.
Now in its fourth cohort, the 2025 Founder Lab class represents a diversity of industries, geographies, and lived experiences, united by one shared mission: building ventures that solve real problems, create new markets, and drive economic value that includes everyone.
Meet this year’s cohort: Founder Lab Cohort 4 – 2025.
Real Ventures. Real Decisions.
Each founder had just minutes to pitch their company, but the impact will last far longer. Their ventures spanned health tech, sustainability, AI, product innovation, and more, each one daring to do things differently and build with intention.
And because belief needs fuel, we added a little more power to the pot.
The Possibility Pot: Powered by ATB
Backed by ATB Wealth and W by ATB, the $2,500 Possibility Pot was awarded live by audience vote to one founder whose venture stood out as a beacon of potential.
With over $65B in assets, ATB isn’t just a financial institution, it’s a values-aligned partner committed to bold ideas and the entrepreneurs who spark them. The Possibility Pot is their commitment in action: early-stage capital that says we see you, and we’re in.
Meet the 2025 Winner: Elle, MD
This year’s Demo Day winner? Elle, MD, a Nova Scotia-based health venture developing a non-hormonal contraceptive ring that puts reproductive power back in women’s hands, safely, reliably, and without compromise.
In a category overdue for innovation, Elle, MD is creating an option that protects health and choice. Their monthly, user-controlled ring is a breakthrough in women’s health, and the audience saw it, felt it, and believed it with their votes.
What Demo Day Proves
Demo Day isn’t just a platform, it’s proof. That with capital and community working together, the future is not only possible, it’s already on its way.
From pitch to possibility, from founder to funder, and to our incredible partners - Alberta Innovates & IRAP - helping bring this event to life, Demo Day 2025 was a powerful close to a historic Summit. And it’s only the beginning.
💡 Want to join the next demo day? Apply to our Founder Lab September cohort here. Applications close July 18, 2025.
