In this interview, we give the floor to Morgan Guitton, Vice President of Programs at Cycle Momentum. Over the past five years, she has been involved in the evolution of various startup support programs offered by Cycle Momentum. She shares the highlights of these programs and Cycle Momentum’s commitment to entrepreneurs.
By Morgan Guitton, VP Programs at Cycle Momentum – Thibault Beudin, Communication Officer at Cycle Momentum & Rayan Mebtoul, Marketing, Events, and Communications Intern at Cycle Momentum.
In this interview, we give the floor to Morgan Guitton, Vice President of Programs at Cycle Momentum. Over the past five years, she has been involved in the evolution of various startup support programs offered by Cycle Momentum. She shares the highlights of these programs and Cycle Momentum’s commitment to entrepreneurs.
YOU ARE VICE PRESIDENT OF PROGRAMS—CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT YOUR ROLE?
Of course! It’s quite straightforward—I lead the team that manages our programs. When I first joined Cycle Momentum, we were running two clean tech acceleration cohorts per year, and I was responsible for ensuring everything ran smoothly. Cycle Capital, a leading venture capital player in clean technologies, founded the accelerator. At the time, they identified a gap in the Canadian ecosystem in terms of early-stage support and funding. The objective was clear: increase the number of cleantech startups in Canada, improve project quality and success rates, and become a prime source of high-potential companies for venture capital investors.
That mission still drives us today. Over the past five years, in collaboration with external partners such as Zone Agtech, Hydro-Québec, the Circular Innovation Fund, Cascades, and Esplanade Québec, we have significantly expanded our offering. We’ve added thematic programs (Agtech, circular economy, sustainable packaging, decarbonization, etc.), collaboration opportunities with larger companies, financing opportunities through the Origo program and the Partner Fund Circle, and more recently, the Lab-to-Startup program that accelerates the transition of clean technologies from lab to market.
So from a single person managing a program, we’ve grown into a team of five employees and about thirty experts, mentors, and entrepreneurs, offering a much wider range of services covering the entire maturity spectrum of climate tech startups.
LET’S FOCUS ON THE ACCELERATION PROGRAMS. HOW DO THEY WORK EXACTLY?
Our programs last four months and are structured in small cohorts of entrepreneurs selected through a rigorous selection process. They receive personalized support through targeted workshops, mentoring, coaching, and benefit from a collaborative environment with other entrepreneurs, in-residence experts, and partners. They often culminate in a pitch to investors.
The goal is to help startups reach a major milestone quickly—to structure themselves and become “fundable.” It’s also a space for peer-to-peer support, which is incredibly powerful.
WHY ARE CLEAN TECHNOLOGIES OR CLIMATE TECH HARDER TO BRING TO MARKET?
They are more complex to bring to market because, in most cases, they require long development times and significant infrastructure capital (CAPEX), and thus business models adapted to these realities. That’s exactly why we exist: to help entrepreneurs turn innovation into economic and environmental value. We prepare them to raise funds, connect with their first customers, and bring their vision to life in a realistic, structured framework.
I would say our strength lies in helping them rethink business development based on a go-to-market roadmap supported by customer feedback, rather than focusing only on technological development or aiming—often unrealistically—to raise millions for their first plant.
AND HOW DO YOU DO THAT?
Our first question to an entrepreneur is often: “Do you know what keeps your customer up at night?” Because that’s the problem to solve.
Many climate tech entrepreneurs are brilliant scientists who have developed a fantastic solution to a major issue. Their challenge is often to look beyond the strength of their technology and craft a strong value proposition based on measurable client benefits. These benefits must be environmental, of course, but also economically sound.
That’s where our experts step in to help them articulate these benefits in a structured way, build a business case for a client, and demonstrate—quantitatively—how their product solves the problem.
We also help them put themselves in their customer’s shoes, listen carefully to concerns around the technology, and figure out how to progressively address these issues and de-risk adoption. From there, we support them in building a realistic go-to-market plan based on technical or operational milestones that matter to the client.
This is really our primary area of intervention. I can think of many cases where an expert sat down with an entrepreneur to make live calls to clients, coaching them on how to pitch the company—but more importantly—how to get the other person talking to truly understand their pain points and extract the information needed to craft the right offer.
Once that commercial strategy is clear, if a startup aims to raise venture capital, they must demonstrate solid unit economics—that is, show that the business is profitable by analyzing revenue and costs per product or customer. This is tough for any tech entrepreneur, and even more so in capital-intensive industries.
And, as my colleagues at Origo have pointed out, to reassure investors, you need a funding plan aligned with the commercialization strategy. Investors want to see how each funding round helps the company reach key commercial milestones and de-risk the project.
YOU MENTIONED THEMATIC PROGRAMS—CAN YOU ELABORATE?
Historically, cleantech was a sector in and of itself, so Cycle Momentum offered specialized programs from the start. Since then, sub-sectors have emerged with very specific needs. That’s why we’ve launched several thematic programs where entrepreneurs can exchange ideas around shared challenges: scaling issues in the decarbonization program, aligning milestones with seasonality in Agtech, and so on.
This also allows us to bring in partners and industry leaders to participate in the programs.
IS THAT ALL?
Of course not—it’s also about human support. Every entrepreneur is a passionate individual with a big vision, often carrying their project on their shoulders, sometimes against all odds. That’s especially true in our field, where the urgency to act is clear, but the barriers are often greater than in other sectors.
So it’s critical for us to support the entrepreneurs as people too—because yes, we accelerate startups, but above all, we support entrepreneurs through the journey. That’s why, alongside workshops and working sessions, each entrepreneur is paired with an experienced founder. They can talk business, sure, but also discuss team dynamics, co-founder relationships, work-life balance, or stress from specific challenges. Human to human, who’s been through it before.
In many cases, the mentor-mentee relationship extends well beyond the program—we’re incredibly proud to have sparked these lasting connections. We often say our programs are built for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs.
ANY ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT?
Plenty! But one major improvement I’d like to make is to systematically involve multiple industrial partners in the programs more formally. They would share their challenges, interact with entrepreneurs about proposed solutions, and provide feedback and guidance.
A FINAL WORD?
Yes—there’s a saying that it takes a village to raise a child. Well, it also takes a village to launch a startup. That’s why I’m so happy with the role Cycle Momentum plays for entrepreneurs—alongside mentors, experts, partners, and program managers doing an amazing job coordinating it all and making sure everything runs smoothly.
The success of our entrepreneurs is our success! I’m always thrilled when I get a message from a founder who’s landed a client, when I see a new funding announcement, or when a mentor tells me they’re joining the startup we matched them with.
