After what seems like *forever* there is suddenly a lot of events scheduled: LaunchParty Vancouver, DemoCamp Guelph, StartupCamp Waterloo, DemoCamp Toronto, the list goes on… but be sure register and / or get your tickets soon, cause seats are going to go fast. It will be great to catch up and see what everyone has been hard at work on!
Author: Jevon MacDonald
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Weekend Reading – February 14, 2009
Happy belated Valentine’s Day! Here are a couple links we wanted to share to celebrate the occasion:Omnidate caught a wink from the Discovery Channel.
Lavalife cofounder Bruce Croxon was interviewed by Fortune Hunters on how it all got started.
After watching from afar for 2 years, W Media Ventures invested in Vancouver based FitBrains.
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Friday Night Byte – ZeroFootPrint
This week Byte Club serves up ZeroFootPrint, who are helping folks offset carbon like there is no tomorrow.
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Weekend Reading – January 17, 2009
In the News:
Rypple in the Economist.Well.ca founder Ali Asaria interviewed for Allentrepreneur.
Warming your heart this Nuclear Winter:
FreshBooks’ CEO on Distribution 2.0 Winners & Losers.
Wellington Financial topped up their Fund III with $25M for a total $150M. And, Wellington’s Mark McQueen continues to hilariously rail on the fund run by Kevin O’Leary of Dragon’s Den.First Round Capital held Office Hours in Vancouver this week. Any reports?
b5media’s CEO Jeremy Wright took a IZEA (PayPerPost) Coke Zero offer. More paid posts to appear on b5 blogs?
Why your web startup will fail! vs Why your startup will succeed!
Netshelter raised $11M from Rho, GrowthWorks, and JLA.
8 companies were funded by the Investment Accelerator Fund including: C2C Link, Echologics, IPeak Networks, Kneebone, Regen Energy, Skymeter, Nulogy, and Sysmos. What a great way to start 2009!
Check out the StartupNorth Calendar for upcoming events in your city. Montreal ical feed is acting up, but we are working on it!
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Update #2: PWC SR&ED Seminar – Thursday, Jan 29
Those tickets went fast! By popular demand, the good folks at PWC are going to run an Afternoon SR&ED Seminar Thursday, January 29 as well.
SR&ED is easily the largest tax credit program available to Canadian companies for recouping R&D spending with over $4 Billion being distributed each year. SME’s can recoup 35% of their R&D spending from the Federal program and then layer on Provincial tax credits as well. Thousands of tech entrepreneurs across Canada have used SR&ED to bootstrap their companies and stretch R&D dollars. This is not a government program you want to ignore. So you might be concerned by the recently announced changes to the SR&ED claims form (T661) and process.
Well then register now for the upcoming PWC SR&ED Breakfast Seminar. There is no cost to attend, but seating is limited, so you’ll want to RSVP as soon as possible.PWC SR&ED Breakfast Seminar
*Update #2 – Morning & Noon sessions have reached capacity, but an Afternoon session has been added.*
7:30 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. Registration
8:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. Presentation and Q&A11:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Registration
12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Presentation and Q&A2:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Registration
3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Presentation and Q&APricewaterhouseCoopers
King West Rooms 1 and 2
145 King Street West, 11th floor
Toronto, OntarioPlease register by January 26, 2009 at http://www.pwc.com/ca/sred or contact Simone Knott by email [email protected] or phone 416-941-8383 x14498.
We invite you to join senior members of the PricewaterhouseCoopers SR&ED group as they discuss the implications of these recent changes on the preparation of your SR&ED claims and your claiming processes.
The seminar will highlight:
• What the changes are (and what has not changed)
• How to adapt to the changes
• Transitioning from the old form to the new form
• Old vs. new terminologyWe hope you can join us. We know you will not want to miss this opportunity. If you have questions related to this topic that you wish to be addressed during the seminar, please include them in your RSVP.
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Tech Capital doubles bets on Overlay.TV and PostRank
Overlay.TV and PostRank (formerly AideRSS) have both recently secured second rounds of funding from Tech Capital Partners, Overlay.TV raising $4.6M and PostRank raising a ‘significant round that will last well into 2010’. Also participating in Overlay.TV’s follow on financing were their other existing investors Edgestone and Celtic House.In the current environment, it makes tremendous sense to top up the portfolio companies’ coffers so they have all the fuel they need to reach an exit. Of course, we would never cheer on VCs throwing good money after bad. Fortunately for Tech Capital these two portfolio companies have been making nice progress this year. Jacqui Murphy, Partner with Tech Capital Partners had this to say:
“We are very pleased with the progress the companies have made since our initial investments and are even more pleased to support them again.”
Overlay.TV has secured a number of high profile partners and users including the Jonas Brothers (no relation). And AideRSS has rebranded as PostRank and released a number of exciting new enhancements including Google Reader integration and a Full Access API.
Congrats to both Overlay.TV and PostRank on the recent raises!
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BumpTop Beta: first 100 to register get access
For those of you viewing this post from your RSS reader, visit StartupNorth for the submission form.
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BumpTop coming soon to a Mac near you…?
Earlier today MacRumours reported on the publication of dozens of Apple patent applications covering, among other things, a ‘Multi-Dimensional Desktop’ that looks strikingly similar to Toronto based BumpTop’s 3D Desktop. Who says cutting edge technology isn’t coming out of Canada? Don’t want to wait for Apple to introduce this in 2012… sign up today for the BumpTop Beta. You can bet the lawyers got a call this morning!
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Xtreme Labs iPhone Speedtest makes Top Ten
Toronto based Xtreme Labs, the development arm of Extreme Venture Partners, has a hit on their hands. Their iPhone App ‘Speedtest’ has been deemed a top ten app in the free utilities category by Apple. Speedtest is offered as free ad supported app and also as a paid app with no ads. Speedtest is now also available for Blackberries and Androids.Word is that the devs at Xtreme Labs have a little competition going with some of ExtremeVP’s portfolio companies to see who can get the widest distribution fastest. Sounds like fun!