Fitzrovia Is Betting on the Businesses Next Door

Fitzrovia is opening the door for entrepreneurs who live in its communities. How? Canada’s largest purpose-built rental developer recently launched Fitz Pitch, a competition that gives its resident entrepreneurs the chance to pitch their businesses directly to founder and CEO Adrian Rocca for a shot at $10,000. The new initiative is also part of Fitzrovia’s broader Business Symposium, which gives residents access to the tools, connections, and platforms to grow their businesses.

“We have to do a better job as a society, as Canadians, to support entrepreneurs and small businesses,” says Rocca. “The last thing we want is for folks leaving the country in order to accelerate their business. We want to keep homegrown talent here investing in Canada.”

The inaugural competition drew 46 applications, which Rocca personally reviewed before selecting six finalists. The final, held at Fitzrovia’s Sloane community in Toronto’s Yorkdale on September 19, gave each entrepreneur 10 minutes to present their business, followed by questions and feedback from Rocca and fellow entrepreneur judges Jay Klein, founder & CEO, The PUR Company and Moez Kassam, founder & principal, Anson Funds. 

Suhuyuni Homevoh, founder of Carbon Nutrition, a supplement startup trying to make sports nutrition a little less cumbersome, won the inaugural contest. The company’s flagship Savage Gel Pack is designed to put pre-workout into a more convenient format, something Homevoh says took 16 revisions to get right.

The company, which began selling to consumers earlier this year, quickly ran into a production issue as demand for its product started outpacing its inventory. Homevoh plans to use the $10,000 prize to bring in more product and close that gap.

Getting to that point has involved some less glamorous startup moments, too. A supplier issue delayed pre-orders, which eventually led Shopify to cut off the company’s payment processing, an issue Homevoh is still trying to resolve. He is also working through the regulatory process required to fully sell the product in Canada. Capital, naturally, has been another headache.

So when Homevoh walked into this year’s Fitz Pitch, he wasn’t pitching an entirely new business idea, but looking for resources to help him keep up with the already growing demand.  

Hearing the judges speak candidly about the setbacks they had faced themselves made Homevoh more comfortable talking about his own. “I just figured, well, I may be at another roadblock, but I can get past it just like they did,” he says.

The second-place winner, KAMARA Georgian Bakery, took home $5,000 and the other four finalists each took home $1,000. 

For Rocca, the goal isn’t simply to give residents another amenity, but to create an environment where people can find the confidence, connections and support to pursue what they’re building.

Rocca founded Fitzrovia in 2017 and has since built the company into a major resident-first rental platform, with more than 400 employees and several communities across Canada. By the end of 2026, the company will have 26 towers built.

The way Fitzrovia uplifts its residents extends beyond the pitch initiative, too. The rental platform has built what Rocca calls “social infrastructure” into its communities, which involves services and programming designed to help residents connect and make everyday life easier. There are shared spaces designed more like living rooms than traditional condo lobbies, sports partnerships with the Raptors and Blue Jays, virtual healthcare offerings through Cleveland Clinic, education programs in some of their family-oriented buildings, and a business directory connecting residents with businesses run by their neighbours.

Homevoh has only lived in a Fitzrovia community for a few months, but the competition has already changed the way he interacts with his neighbours. Since the pitch, other entrepreneurs in the building have approached him to exchange contacts, share resources, and talk about their businesses.

“The developers really care about who's living here, and they actually do want to build a community, not just talk about building a community,” he says.

With Fitz Pitch set to return next year, Homevoh’s advice for the next round of applicants is simple: don’t stress too much about the prize money. “Even if you don’t win, you get to go out there and present your idea, which at some point you will have to do,” he says. “So why not start practicing now?”

Rocca knows better than most that the road from pitch to business is rarely a straight one. “The biggest thing is this romantic vision of entrepreneurship, half of which is true, half of which is not true,” he says. “It was much harder than I thought it would be.”

But that difficulty, he says, is part of the journey. “The struggles are real. But those failures are going to make you a much stronger business and a much stronger future leader.” 

The result, in Rocca’s vision, is a version of rental living where a resident’s ambitions have the space and support to grow.