BlackBerry, L-SPARK Announce Third Phase of Accelerator Program

BlackBerry (BB), a provider of intelligent security software and services to businesses and governments, and L-SPARK, Canada’s largest software-as-a-service accelerator, announced Tuesday the launch of a third cohort for their joint accelerator program.

Advancing Canadian Connected Technology Innovation

The accelerator program aims to grow Canadian technology companies focused on connected vehicle solutions. Applications will remain open until March 7, 2022. BlackBerry and L-SPARK will choose up to six companies to join the third cohort of the program.

Following the success of the first and second cohorts, the partnership will once again help small- and medium-sized technology enterprises (SMEs) develop new products and grow their businesses using BlackBerry QNX technology.

New this year, chosen companies will have access to BlackBerry’s intelligent vehicle data platform — BlackBerry IVY — to deliver high-impact transportation use cases by leveraging in-vehicle data.

BlackBerry IVY was announced in December 2020 as part of a multi-year global agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS). The cloud-connected software platform presents vehicle data in a standardized format, which can easily be used by applications on or off the vehicle. (See Analysts’ Top Stocks on TipRanks)

Management Commentary

“After two successful cohorts with L-SPARK we look forward to going to back to the deep talent pool that exists within the Canadian start-up scene to help identify those companies that share our vision: a transportation industry – and in-vehicle experience – transformed by data,” said Peter Virk, vice-president of IVY Product and Ecosystem, BlackBerry. “As we continue to build out a robust ecosystem of services and automotive applications to leverage the rich data insights that BlackBerry IVY provides, we can’t wait to see the ideas and use cases that will emerge to help automakers unlock the vast potential of next generation intelligent connected vehicles.”

Wall Street’s Take

Last month, RBC Capital analyst Paul Treiber kept a Sell rating on BB with a C$9.50 target price. This implies 24.7% downside potential.

Overall, BB scores a Moderate Sell rating among Wall Street analysts based on one Hold and three Sells. The average BlackBerry price target of C$11.43 implies 9.4% downside potential to current levels.

TipRanks’ Smart Score

BB scores a 3 out of 10 on TipRanks’ Smart Score rating system, indicating that the stock returns are likely to underperform the overall market.