SmartHippo continues plot for world domination

SmartHippo has named the former LendingTeam GM, Lori Collins, CEO. And they are expanding their European footprint through an exclusive license and partnership with Finacialred in Spain. This is definite traction and a step further down the growth path for George and the team in Montreal. A world-class CEO, a expansion into the European marketplace that allows a local entity to do the sales and marketing allowing the team to continue to work on the software platform. Super cool.

“As General Manager of the LendingTree Exchange, Collins was responsible for sales, relationship management, and product management for the LendingTree lender network. She was part of the executive team which increased revenues from $7 million to $476 million over seven years.”

So what is SmartHippo?

“SmartHippo.com uses the power of community to help consumers find the best mortgage rates and save money. SmartHippo allows any individual to post information and feedback on the rate they received, and to compare rates with other members of the community with similar profiles. Members of SmartHippo can see real rates reported by real consumers, and sort through banks based on feedback posted by other members of the community. “

SmartHippo is an open, transparent marketplace where consumers help each other find the best financial products. Basically all of the those hidden gotchas, the little things that are often hidden in the fine print, that you only discover after a difficult situation. It’s about providing a platform that consumers can ask questions, share reviews, compare rates and experiences to make make informed financial decisions. SmartHippo is the underlying software platform that allows these conversations to take place.

Huge day for SmartHippo. And there is an opportunity for local startups (well local to Montreal) to hear from a Valley veteran running a hot Canadian startup. Lori Collins will be delivering the closing keynote at StartupCamp Montreal on October 15. If you are in the Montreal area, the event takes place at the Society for Arts and Technology, 1195 Saint-Laurent boulevard, Montreal [map] from 6pm to 11pm. Make sure you take the opportunity to participate and meet George, Lori and the team.

Backbone Magazine’s Top 20 Web 2.0

Backbone Magazine announced their “PICK 20 round of Canada’s leading Web 2.0 pioneers” that includes 4 companies form our list of web startups to watch, it’s a great list of Canadian technology companies and startups.

The List

FreshBooks, Toronto
Myca Health, Quebec City
CoveritLive, Toronto
Viigo, Toronto
Radian6, Fredericton
Filemobile, Toronto
BoardSuite, Toronto
NowPublic, Vancouver
Tungle, Montreal
HootSuite, Vancouver
ThoughtFarmer, Vancouver
AfterCAD Online, Vancouver
TeamPages, Vancouver
The Manufacturing Innovation Network, Kitchener
Well.ca, Guelph
Clarity Accounting, Vancouver
Voices.com, London
Taglocity, Vancouver
PollStream, Toronto
Pixton, Vancouver

The majority of the startups on the PICK20 list are in Vancouver (8) and Toronto (5). It’s a great list of Canadian startups.

Defensio.com acquired by Websense

Defensio.com, who we first wrote about in November 2007, are announcing today that they have been acquired by Websense. The Montreal based company also presented at StartupCamp Toronto in December 2007.

This acquisition, the size of which is undisclosed but I am assured it is “significant”, send a few signals to the startup community. The biggest one is that things are still happening even in this “nuclear winter” as some are calling it, and more importantly: Good products and businesses are still worth something.

When Defensio launched, I took some flak for endorsing them. A lot of people said that “akismet does that”, and it was true, Akismet did do a lot of the same things. In using the service it was noticibly better. I am planning on going back to them.

Carl also assures me that the Defensio anti-spam service for comments on non-commercial blogs will remain free under their new parent company.

Websense remains committed to the Defensio developer community and plans to support and enhance the platform for personal users, as well as for commercial use. The company also plans to continue to offer the comment spam filter at no charge for personal use, while offering a new six month commercial trial at no cost. “The combination of Defensio and Websense is a coup for Web 2.0 developers looking for strong anti-spam and security capabilities,” said Carl Mercier, who founded Defensio and has joined Websense as director of software development. “Imagine if Web 2.0 developers could access an API so their applications could determine if user-generated content is malicious or unwanted – without having to embed anything in their applications or products. We see strong potential to partner with social networking platforms, enterprises and hosting providers to enable advanced Web 2.0 security with the Defensio solution.”

When I profiled defensio in 2007 I said that while they might take a run at Akismet’s main business (blog comments), their real opportunity is to find new markets for these collaborative anti-spam tools. That is just what they have done and it is where Websense sees the future of the tool. Websense offers a suite of security and content related tools and Defensio looks like a perfect fit.

If Defensio can provide a higher level of integration support and a better protection product, then they will be able to win some customers over from Akismet, but it is absolutely going to be a hard-fought battle, with everyone trying to row the boat a little harder in order to win.

The real opportunity for Defensio however is to raid the markets that Akismet has left untouched. Where Akismet has proven the technology, and opened an initial market which Defensio can sell to, they are also leaving peripheral markets completely alone. – 2007

The team at Defensio deserve credit for a win and a good start to 2009 for the Montreal community and Canada in general.

There are rumors of more great announcements to come, pehaps 2009 won’t be so bad afterall?