Toronto-based firm Blake, Cassels & Graydon is launching a first-of-its-kind fund to provide subsidized legal services to support the rapidly growing Canadian technology startup market.

“The rationale is very clear to us, emerging technologies is the future of the economy in Canada,” said Blake Cassels counsel Marc Shewchun, one of the leaders of the firm's new initiative. “Not being a part of that is foolish.”

The brainchild of the firm's information technology group, co-headed by partner Christine Ing, the program is set to launch in the Toronto-Waterloo region of Ontario that currently has close to 5,200 startups and nearly 200,000 workers in the technology space.