Our Story
The Place
The Daily Planet building housed the iconic Chatham Planet Printing and Publishing Company. The Chatham Planet newspaper was published weekly from 1857 to 1891, after which it became the Chatham Daily Planet until December 29th, 1922.
After a fire in 1913, building was immediately reconstructed and replaced by a poured concrete structure.
As per local legend, people use to associate this building to “The Daily Planet building” in Superman series. In fact, since many Canadians have contributed in the creation of the Superman series, we do not know for sure if any of them was inspired by this building.
This building has deep rooted association with the evolution of Chatham and has strong nostalgic vibes. The historical profile and the rich heritage makes it a perfect foundation for building an institution that is focused to bring a paradigm shift in the economic development of the region through entrepreneurial vibrancy and an ecosystem geared toward building world class companies.
The Idea
Soar Innovation has a dream of empowering people toward entrepreneurship and enabling them to create world class companies by creating innovative products and services to solve the most pressing problems faced by the region. This dream emerged when our internal research team did a study in 2018 on the future of Southern Western Ontario as an economy. We found that this region has the capability to support a vibrant and growing economy – however, there are unique challenges that need to be addressed and solved. Entrepreneurship was identified as the key for solving these challenges by building new businesses that will create solutions while fostering the development of job creation. We believe that those who live here have the ideas needed to bring economic growth to the region…they just need some help developing these innovative ideas!
A business incubator & accelerator is the engine that can drive the impending change by bringing creativity, resources, entrepreneurship and workforce together. Successful incubator and accelerators in other regions have substantially enhanced the 4-year survival rate of new companies by providing mentorship, education and training and capital investment. Successful ventures result in the creation of jobs and increased tax revenue. SOAR Innovation is designed based on other successful business incubators and accelerators to offer services as a business pre-incubator, incubator, accelerator and hyper accelerator. SOAR Innovation acts as a catalyst for all aspects of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, connecting startups to the services they need to grow, including the municipality, financial institutions, local colleges and universities and investors.
Our Founders
SOAR Innovation is a brainchild of Geetu and Prashant Pathak, seasoned venture capitalists who have deep expertise in strategic management and access to insights from leading strategy firms that are critical for incubation and acceleration.
Established local business owners and investors, our founders are committed to transforming Chatham-Kent into an epicentre for entrepreneurship with world-class companies scaled-up from small startups.
They have an international network through our affiliates in more than 30 countries. This network of expertise will provide mentorship and guidance for transforming startups into new business leaders.
Ecosystem
SOAR acts as a catalyst for all aspects of the entrepreneurial system, connecting startups with the tools and connections needed for success.
Our goal is create a sense of community and synergy, where businesses can network and find support within our unique and vibrant space.
Geetu Pathak is a seasoned business executive with experience in turn around management, business building, and strategy consulting. She is currently the CEO of Milo-FAIS – a company providing infrastructure and services to the food and agricultural sector. Based in southwestern Ontario, Milo-FAIS is an asset -based company conducting operations pertaining to IQF, ammonia plants for refrigeration and water and waste water treatment, material handling services to global agricultural and food processing companies. In her role as the CEO, Ms. Pathak is responsible for all strategic, financial and organizational aspects of the company. In the past five years, she has restructured the operations and developed the services model of the business leading to increased operational and labor efficiencies and profitability. She is also the Vice Chair of Ekagrata Inc., a family investment firm, where she oversees management and operations of several other portfolio companies in the firm. As an entrepreneur and businesswoman, she is highly experienced in dealing with complicated issues surrounding client contract negotiations, government relations and union bargaining.
Aditya Jha is a globetrotter, his business portfolio consists of several startups and company turnarounds with interests in Canada, India, Thailand, and Nepal. He is a philanthropist and community worker at heart and an entrepreneur with passion, through his entrepreneurial feats of actualizing dream with high risk-taking as well as his acts of generous giving to those outside his community; he has demonstrated a rare sensitivity towards the societal needs of Canada.
Mr. Prashant Pathak is CEO of Ekagrata Inc. a business building oriented principal investment company and a Principal of In Colour Capital Inc. As an active owner he spends considerable time in Board and oversight roles at private and public companies. Outside of Canada and US he has significant international experience in, and exposure to issues in Asia, South America and Eastern Europe. He serves on Board of several public and community institutions. He has been an appointee of Government of Canada on the Board of BDC for nearly a decade (Business Development Bank of Canada, a $25 Billion institution). During that time he served as Chairman of the Venture Capital and Investments Committee, BDC Capital is Canada’s largest VC program. He also served extensively on the Credit & Risk Committees. While a member of Pension Committee he proposed and expedited the initiative to adopt LDI to better address pension investment planning.