StartupNorth

Month: April 2007

  • Sunday Startup Roundup

    Sundays seem like as good a time as any to round up what’s been happening in the Canadian startup scene in the last week.

    We blogged about Eqo.com getting funded and the sale of R|Mail to NBC Universal. On top of all that, iUpload has decided to move it’s executive and sales operation to the US.

    Mark McQueen interviewed Rick Segal to get his thoughts on Friends and Family rounds, Angels, strong teams and more. While that was going on, Suzie at Venture Law Line broke the iUpload news and has been looking back on funds that have come and gone in Canada’s VC scene.

    To top it all off, Sean Wise has just published his new book WISE WORDS which is described as

    Collecting the best columns from his first years at the Globe, this book cover topics relevant to: founders, funders and those that service the entrepreneuiral ecosystem.

    Including: How to create an Elevator Pitch; How to pick a partner; The Art of Business Jui Jitsou; Networking to Survive and 14 questions every investor asks on the first date This tome provides the inside track on funding and growing your business.

    Jui Jitsou!? Sounds serious. The last time I took Jui Jitsou, I think I was swinging by a rope and trying to kick a guy holding a big bag or something.

    If anyone picks up this book, and wants to write a review, let us know! We’ll be happy to link to it or post it. You can get a preview here.

    I am sure there are a lot of things we missed, but we need your help to keep track of all this stuff, so I am attaching a contact form so you can give us the dirt on what you have been hearing. New venture firm in town?, have you met a new startup, or are you starting a new company? Let us know.
    (more…)

  • clearRoot.com – Florist Solutions

    clearRoot is a Toronto based startup that is building a back-end system for flower shops that allows thousands of independent stores to place orders with each-other as easily as it is for them to fill an order themselves.

    clearRoot manages all of the complexities associated with a large Business-to-Business network, and they provide very user friendly front-end software to the flower shops who participate. ClearRoot first started to take shape in May of 2004, but has been growing quickly since April 2006. With over 100 paying customers already (and that’s BEFORE they have even released the software), clearRoot is clearly making sense to their customers.

    The clearRoot business model is based on a pay-per-use fee on each order sent through the system. This is similar to Interac, and if it is priced right, this will drive a lot of growth for clearRoot. Because clearRoot was born out of a team with experience running an independent flower shop, as well as their current ethos of building their software and network directly with customers, they have a great chance of building the next big disruptive B2B platform.

    Until now, clearRoot has been doing a lot of direct selling of their network, but they have also been growing organically in their vertical. Later on, they are planning to do joint-promotion with other complimentary services in the florist industry.

    While growth has been strong, the market for something like clearRoot is also growing and my guess is that is why they are currently looking to raise financing.

    clearRoot is currently run by Jeff Richman and their team is built of people experienced with the florist industry, or developers who are working on building their platform out.

    Contact Jeff Richman

  • iUpload moving south

    Word comes from Suzie at Venture Law Line that iUpload, an enterprise blogging platform based in Ontario will now be moving south to the US.

    iUpload recently took on a large Round A of funding which came in at $7 million from two top tier American Venture Capital funds.

    It’s another missed opportunity for Canadian venture money, which could have easily put together the $7 million needed, and could have kept the company in their own backyard.

    iUpload competes most directly with California based blogtronix, who are currently trying to raise their own funding round. With marquee customers like McDonalds, who are actively using their platform, iUpload might not have the most visibility of all the players, but they have the most traction in their space.

    The most interesting thing about iUpload? For a blogging and Social Media company, they don’t do very much blogging themselves.

  • R|Mail – RSS to your inbox, just acquired

    Randy Charles Morin is best known to some of us as one of the early advocates and defenders of RSS and a member of the RSS Advisory Board, but he also maintains a handful of blogs and has been running his R|Mail service for a few years. Last night he dropped the word that R|Mail was acquired.

    My guess is that it wasn’t a big deal, but it’s also a well deserved payoff for Randy, who is one of blogging’s hardest working guys.

    Randy had funding options and had offers from several sources, none of which were Canadian. He had been looking for funding later in 2006 and in to mid-January of this year.

    The scoop came from PaidContent.org and then Maple Leaf 2.0

    Update: An Interview with Randy on MapleLeaf2.0

  • eqo.com – Instant Messaging and Skype on your cell

    eqo.com is a Vancouver, BC based mobile services company that has just gone from Startup to well-funded with a 9 million dollar series B round of funding, which actually included real live Canadian Venture Capital firms Ventures West, Growthworks and the BDC. Their round A was primarily subscribed by BDC Venture Capital from what we understand.

    The news was all over the place this morning.

    Their app is built for cellphones and gives you access to your AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Jabber, GoogleTalk and Skype contacts, and it goes as far as allowing you to make actual skype calls right from your mobile.

    The Mobile App sector has had the most momentum of all the software niches in Canada for some time now and still seems to be inherently more sexy to investors than web startups and seems to be on par with BioTech for pulling in funding (that needs some research).

    As for Eqo, you can bet that Canada and our carriers are not their primary target market, but it’s great to have them here and kicking butt. We’ll follow up when we hear more from them.

    Contact Eqo

  • Resources

    Our full series on Angel Investors by Craig Hayashi

    Canadian Angels & Venture Funds
    Corporate Angels – Toronto, Ontario
    Maple Leaf Angels – Toronto, ON
    Toronto Industrial Angels – Toronto, ON
    Toronto Life Science Angels – Toronto, ON
    Reseaucapital.com – Montreal, Quebec
    Vancouver Angel Network (VANTEC) – Vancouver, BC
    Angel Forum – Vancouver, BC
    Alberta Deal Generator – Edmonton, AB
    Calgary Enterprise Forum – Calgary, Alberta
    First Angel Network Association – Halifax, Nova Scotia
    Kingston Angel Network – Kingston, Ontario
    Ottawa Angel Alliance – Ottawa, Ontario
    Purple Angels – Ottawa, Ontario
    Saskatchewan Angel Investor Network – Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
    Winnipeg Angel Organization – Winnipeg, Manitoba

  • devshop.com – online software project management

    Devshop.com is a hosted project management application for software projects. I took Devshop for a test drive a few months ago at the beginning of their beta and found it to be straightforward, but took a pass on it because it felt like it was focused on larger projects. It seems that Devshop is a legitimate competitor to most major project management software, and at 24$US per seat per month, it is priced well, although that could definitly add up for larger teams.

    There would be a good reason to pay for Devshop however, and that is their approach. Devshop focuses first on requirements and also focuses on time estimation and actively measuring progress against the project schedule. Devshop also brings the entire development team in to the same enviroment, so you don’t have to worry about updating MS Project files or emailing spreadsheets between team members.

    Their “squash the risk” approach, which addresses the most real need of project managers, is what will help make Devshop successful. I think that being focused on Software Development, and only Software Development means that Devshop can keep innovating features that affect their niche audience directly, rather than a lot of the bloat that you get from more general purpose project management vendors.

    Devshop is based in Ottawa, Ontario, and they have 5 employees. They were founded in September 2005 and their software went in to public beta just over a year later. To date, Devshop has been funded to the tune of $200, 000 and they are currently looking for angels to top off a second round of funding.

    Considering what they have done with the small investment they have taken so far, and the fact that 2000 customers totaling over 7000 users are using Devshop already, while it is still in beta, is a pretty good sign of things to come.

    Depending on their plans, I would also think that Devshop will have some pretty attractive exit opportunities. Everyone from Borland to Sun and Microsoft will need a tool like this in their back pocket and will be willing to pay to scoop up the market leader.

    Contact Craig Fitzpatrick

  • yourteamonline.ca – social software for sports teams


    Yourteamonline.ca is a Saint John, New Brunswick based startup that is building an online sports team management app, which first launched in November 2006. YourTeamOnline allows coaches and teammates to share game plans, schedules, statistics, photos, videos and information with eachother in a central place.

    YourTeamOnline generates revenue by providing targetted advertising space to (presumably) both local and national advertisers. Knowing how important hockey is in most Canadian communities, I can see how yourteamonline could become a huge hit, but it will probably also fly under the radar of most people. With over 550,000 minor hockey players just in Canada, there will be a lot of opportunity to grow in the coming years if yourteamonline executes properly.

    It’s also important to note that most local advertising is still limited to newspapers, radio and TV. Very few sites can offer targetted advertisement to the minor hockey aged kids and parents in small canadian communities. If Yourteamonline can sell those ads, I think they could do very well.

    YourTeamOnline only has 2 employees right now, but have recently taken on seed funding in order to develop their business further, and they are currently seeking Round A funding in the first part of 2008.

    With 282 teams already using YourTeamOnline, they are off to a great start and I will be watching their progress in the last half of this year.

    Contact Chris Nadeau

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    StartupNorth is a project to review Canadian startups and to build a community of users who are passionate about building great companies in Canada.

    Written by Jevon MacDonald and Jonas Brandon.

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