The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, another quasi-governmental agency in Atlantic Canada, is running it’s own startup competition for New Brunswick startups.

There aren’t quite as many prizes as in the Innovacorp competition mentioned earlier, but it is still a pretty serious prize package, including a 100,000$ equity investment by NBIF in the winning company along with a mishmash of services that are provided to the various winners.

Submissions are due September 28th, 2007. You can get the submission form here and there is a Participant Handbook you need to read.

These competitions are worth your time whether you are established, just getting started, or even just thinking about getting a startup off the ground. The pressure of developing your business, pitching it and then, hopefully, being rewarded handsomely for your work, is all worthwhile.

Hey, I won one a few years ago and really enjoyed it. That startup, Blogtrack.com, probably wouldn’t have been launched in the end if I hadn’t received the funding that came in due to that competition. It also meant that angel investors came knocking anew. The rest, they say, is history.

Hat tip to Harold Jarche for pointing us towards this.

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