Atlantic Canada Accelerator Propel is thrilled to announce Prince Edward Island-based Stemble Learning as this year’s winner of the Gerry Pond Sales Award. The sales award is presented in recognition of Gerry Pond, who co-founded Propel in 2003 and his contribution to the Atlantic Canadian innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem. The coveted award has a value of $25,000 in cash.
The Gerry Pond Sales Award is awarded each year to a Traction and Growth company that excels in creating a repeatable and scalable sales process. The Traction and Growth programming has an intense focus on customer acquisition and sales.
“Sales is like a superpower. Whether it's to customers, potential hires, or investors, honing this skill is what leads founders to global markets. All three of our finalists have proven that they can not only sell, but they are doing incredibly well at it. Congratulations to Quinton and Mario for being finalists and Jason on his win of the Gerry Pond Sales Award. We are excited to watch your continued success,” comments Propel CEO, Kathryn Lockhart.
Jason Pearson, CEO of Stemble Learning explains, “It’s hard to be a Founder and it’s hard to sell. The Propel coaches taught me how to do that and how to make a program out of that.”
Since joining the Program program, Stemble’s customer base has grown by 1,000% and has been adopted by schools in three different countries. They plan to continue expansion and are now in hiring mode.
The Gerry Pond Sales Award sponsors are Frank McKenna, UNB SJ, BeersNeal PC, Innovatia, Mariner Partners, Sunny Corner Enterprises and Resson.
This year’s finalists included:
Stemble builds powerful e-learning solutions for STEM in higher education. The Stemble platform measures specific strengths and weaknesses in students' knowledge and skills with engaging homework and quiz content in addition to a fully interactive virtual laboratory environment that allows students to explore concepts and procedures in the lab from anywhere.
VroomCrew is an on-demand car care company transforming the auto services industry by delivering mobile car care and optimizing customer convenience.
Renderator is an all-in-one solution that helps real estate developers market, pre-sell/pre-lease, and increase the brand's value while collecting actionable data. Real estate developers and landlords easily build, convert and engage with users online through unparalleled and scalable visual interactive experiences.
The winner was chosen by a third-party selection committee based on criteria that includes sales and customer growth while participating in Propel's Traction & Growth program.
The Gerry Pond Sales Award Winner was announced during a virtual ceremony on Thursday, February 3rd. The event also featured a panel discussion with Trip Ninja, a high profile Propel success story that was recently acquired by Australia’s Webjet Limited and Tranquility App, another Propel alumni company who has been acquired by Green Shield Canada.
About Gerry Pond
Gerry Pond has over 45 years of in-depth experience in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector. As the CEO of NBTel and the President of its successor, Aliant Telecom, he was at the helm during a period of significant deregulation in the Canadian industry. Under his innovative leadership, NBTel emerged as an international ICT leader.
Pond is currently the Chairman and Co-Founder of Mariner Partners Inc., and has co-founded a number of successful ICT start-ups in Atlantic Canada, including iMagicTV, Q1 Labs, Brovada Technologies, Radian6, Shift Energy and Cirrus9. He is also the Co-Founder of Propel, a startup accelerator, the Co-Founder of the Pond-Deshpande Centre at the University of New Brunswick, and the Co-Founder of East Valley Ventures, an accelerator for Atlantic Canadian startup companies with a mission of helping passionate entrepreneurs launch meaningful and enduring technology companies. He is a Director of Upside Foundation, NB Business Council and the National Angel Capital Organization.
