BCBusiness

BcBUsiness.ca march 2018 BCBusiness 45 the exercise into the rest of her life. "Having awareness of my breathing, I feel like it helped me get more sleep and be in a better mood," Gu says. "So that really got me thinking, 'Why is this so e•ective? How can I quantify this and take the essence out of yoga and help to improve my everyday?'" After some success at a UBC hack- athon, Gu took the idea of a bra with fabric sensors that support wellbeing by tracking breathing, posture and heart rate to Kickstarter last April. The result? She raised some US$50,000 in 35 days. The ‹rst batch of smart bras shipped in February. Gu and her three contract employees operate out of a Vancouver co-working space; the smart bra is made in China, but they hope to do some man- ufacturing here. Angela Hamilton co-foUnder and ceo, QUUpe I n 2 014, A n ge l a Hamilton left Washington, D.C., so she could be in the same location as her physician partner, who was work- ing in Vancouver. The couple decided to move to his native South Africa for six months. They got robbed on their second day in the country. "It was a complete nightmare trying to get our paperwork all in order, so we just thought, 'Let's go to Vancouver,'" Hamilton recalls on a couch at the co- working premises in Vancouver's Mount Pleasant neighbourhood that Quupe Inc. calls home. The robbery didn't shake Hamilton's faith in humanity. Quupe (pronounced "coop," as in recoup) is an online com- munity whose members rent items from each other using the company's algorithm to set a fair price. The sys- tem, designed by Virgina native Hamil- ton with three former classmates from the Centre for Digital Media—Zeeshan Rasool, Vijay Ramaswamy and Amanda Shou—puts a lot of trust in its users. None of Quupe's more than 1,000 members has taken advantage of that yet, Hamilton says: "Although the insur- ance needs to be there to guard against any fraud, the reality is that most people are very careful and concerned with each others' stu•, so we haven't had any- thing like that happen." Signing up for the service is free, with Quupe taking a 20-percent fee for each transaction. So far, it's been enough for the four co- founders to quit their day jobs. The company has also hired two employees. Quupe is only available in Vancouver and select suburbs right now, but plans to move out to Surrey and Victoria are in motion, with bigger goals on the horizon. "Our ideal user is people aged 18 to 45 who are likely to rent or borrow things from their friends," Hamilton explains. "In the Lower Mainland, that number is 1.1 million, but worldwide it's around 3.1 billion. It's one of those things where I just think that the market timing is now ideal. People are now totally comfortable with Airbnb and Uber, and looking at what other resources we can share." Carlyn Loncaric foUnder and ceo, vodasafe C o q u i t l a m n a t i ve Carlyn Loncaric came up with the idea for her business on a beach. But it wasn't the aha moment you might think, where a relaxed onlooker sees the sun touch the ocean and everything clicks. Loncaric conceived the AquaEye, VodaSafe's ¨agship product, during her years as a Vancouver lifeguard. As an SFU microelectronics graduate student at the turn of the decade, she was paying for her education by over- seeing swimmers at the city's pools and beaches. "There was a couple of years where you heard of kids drowning o• docks and waterfronts, and I was doing electronics, and you have a lot of time as a lifeguard; you're in a chair for eight hours, going back and forth with your eyes," Loncaric says. "I just ‹gured that there was something simpler people could be using." The AquaEye is a handheld device that employs sonar to scan the under- water search area, allowing the user to locate victims immediately. "Most life- guards are 16 to 24, and you're in situa- tions where a mom comes up to you that her kid's gone missing, and your heart rate jumps and you kind of have to act on autopilot," Loncaric explains. VodaSafe has teamed up with the Lifesaving Society, a national volun- teer and charitable organization that works to prevent drowning and water-related injury, to manufac- ture and distribute the AquaEye. Last November the Kelowna- based company sold 50 beta units, and it's hoping to have its ‹rst production run this spring. Merideth Schutter foUnder and ceo, protect Realtor Merideth Schutter's entrepre- neurial venture also resulted from a "there was a couple of years where you heard of kids drowning off docks and waterfronts, and i was doing electronics, and you have a lot of time as a lifeguard; you're in a chair for eight hours, going back and forth with your eyes. i just figured that there was something simpler people could be using" —Carlyn Loncaric, founder and CEO of VodaSafe

• Cover