Social-good companies still feel accelerator's reverberations
Losing a program that helped companies focus on public good, investment, and scale is a "big loss," says one successful grad of the defunct Community Safety and Wellness Accelerator.
"Seeing how there was a really focused support in the community safety and wellness space was such a vote of confidence for us," said Lana Cuthbertson, CEO and co-founder of Areto Labs. "(We felt) validation in hearing there was a real market need for what we were doing — and on top of that, a societal need — from these significant voices in the landscape."
Areto Labs was part of the first of six cohorts in the Community Safety and Wellness Accelerator, known as the CSW. Areto uses artificial intelligence to filter hate speech and harassment online, today counting ex-prime ministers and international sports organizations among its clients.
"We have endless stories from our customers who say, 'This was such a huge relief, night and day, not having to deal with reading these toxic comments, having a piece of software take care of it,'" Cuthbertson told Taproot. "If there's anything we want to outsource to the robots, this is at the top of the list."
Upon graduation from the CSW, Areto Labs was the first company to receive investment from the ScaleGood Fund. The $10-million fund is managed by Ashif Mawji, who also led the bid for the Edmonton Police Foundation to operate the CSW with programming partner AlchemistX and initial sponsorship from TELUS.
"Sure, you can make money without doing good, but I think if you make money and do good, you'll do much better," Mawji told Taproot. "I'm a believer that it has to be both."
The CSW was one of the accelerator programs in the Scaleup GAP pilot that Alberta Innovates ended last year, not long after it faced significant cuts from the Alberta government. CSW's managing director Jillian McLaren was named Leader of the Year at the Start Alberta Tech Awards in November of 2025, and the accelerator did not officially bid farewell until about three weeks ago, even though Alberta Innovates noted its demise in August.
"What began as a bold vision to support social impact entrepreneurs working to build safer, healthier communities has grown into a global movement," the CSW's farewell post said. "While this program concludes, the movement does not. The work continues through each founder, each venture, and each supporter who believes that community safety and wellness deserve bold solutions."
