StartupNorth

Author: Jonas Brandon

  • DemoCampGuelph Tonight – April 9th 2008

    Jonas and I are heading to DemoCampGuelph tomorrow. The lineup looks great, it includes: Liveoffcamp.us!, doctopus, myvine and fossfactory.

    While this isn’t a startupcamp, Jonas and I will be doing a rapidfire pitch of our own: (Less Stupid) Startups, including some secrets on how to get covered on blogs a little more easily.

    So if you are in the area, or just want to find out what is happening in Guelph (lots of cool stuff!), then sign up and I am looking forward to seeing you there. Be sure to say Hi!

  • StartupCamp Toronto 2: Leila Boujnane

    I am excited to announce that Leila Boujnane, CEO of Idée, will be closing the evening. Idée, who we have previously profiled, is one of Toronto’s biggest startup success stories, and the wonderful thing is that they are just getting started.

    Leila is constantly providing help and guidance to other entrepreneurs, myself included, and she has even been known to take a whip along when a startup isn’t hustling as much as they should be.

    I am going to send Leila 5 questions next week, so I want your help. Post or email your questions about starting a company and growing it to be as great as Idée.

    Our Sponsors

  • stopfinder.com – Should you take transit or take the car?

    stopfinder_small.pngThere have been a handful of Parking-Finder map sites lately. They were all neat, but seemed to lack that extra bit of information I wanted to know: How much is this going to cost?

    As you would have it, I have a meeting today up in the hinterlands that is Young and St. Claire. Because it is pouring rain I thought about taking the car. Because I don’t know the area, StopFinder popped in to my head. The founder of the site, Michael DiBernardo emailed us a couple of days ago to let us know that it launched.

    Stopfinder offers a huge amount of information, but it is all presented incredibly clearly. Subway and Bus stops are placed with nice big markers, and parking lots are easy to spot.

    With StopFinder you enter the address of where you are going and the time you will arrive, as well as how long you will be staying. StopFinder then calculates the closest parking lots, how much they cost in total, and which is the best combination of distance and cost from your final destination. Pretty cool, but what I love is that it also shows you public transportation options for getting there as well. In this case, we are basically right beside a subway stop. So I will do the right thing, leave the car in the garage and jump on the subway. That’s fine by me. I hate driving.

    Michael pointed out two kinds of pain that StopFinder helps solve:

    StopFinder finds the closest, cheapest parking lots and the surrounding TTC stops for a Toronto destination. This eases two kinds of pain:

    (a) There aren’t many good ways to figure out how to get where you’re going on the TTC right now. We think StopFinder beats what is out there.

    (b) When planning a get-together, some guests will come by car and others by transit. You can provide everyone with a single link that helps them get there.

    I am pretty happy with this service so far. The amount of data they seem to have aggregated is incredible. They also have an API that other developers can use to access their data.

    StopFinder might not have the largest audience yet, afterall it is Toronto-centric, but they are solving a real problem. Finding parking was never the problem for most of us, it turns out that it was knowing when to take a car and when to take transit. Even I didn’t know that until I experienced the solution, but I can tell that StopFinder will become a part of my toolkit from now on.

    Give it a try and let us know what you think. Post in the comments below.

  • Reminder: CIX and StartupCamp Deadlines

    Time is running short to apply to pitch at CIX, and also to get help with your pitch at StartupCamp.

    The deadline to apply to CIX is April 4th, you can apply here. It is worth noting that the pricing structure has changed based on feedback and it is now half the price it used to be for startups who present.

    StartupCamp Toronto 2 is happening at the same time as CIX, and you can apply to present here, you have until Sunday April 13th for that one.


    We’d like to thank our first confirmed sponsor as well, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, as well as service providers who have purchased tickets: Mike Middleton (Q1Capital Partners) and Frances Fast (Q1Capital Partners), and Daniel Shapiro (Microsoft)

  • AideRSS Announces Google Reader Integration

    AideRSS, who we originally covered last July, and who recently took funding from TechCapital Partners in Waterloo, are announcing integration with Google Reader today.

    The extension, which comes in the form of a Firefox plugin, gives AideRSS its first opportunity to hook in to the everyday workflow of heavy RSS users. Until now, You more or less had to go to AideRSS.com to make use of their tool. Building a Firefox extension like this will give them additional reach.

    The appeal to the end user is that you can use AideRSS as an initial filter for your feeds. Getting up in the morning and seeing that you have 500 unread items is painful, and I know that I will enjoy having a first line of defense.

    So, we have for you, our lucky readers, 50 invitations that will get you in on the ground floor of the beta. Get em while they’re hot.

  • April Fools: We are funded! StartupNorth takes a $3.2 million series A financing

    Well, the time has arrived. We can finally take the covers off of what we have been working on and give you an idea of where we plan to go with StartupNorth.

    Today we are announcing that we have taken an initial round of financing to expand StartupNorth, launch new startup focused projects and to further expand our blog-related publishing business. Most of you are aware of our first addition to the SUN network: wirelessnorth.ca

    Our new CEO and former Microsoft employee David Crow sums it up best:

    File Photo

    “Running a startup community has been very lucrative for StartupNorth (now known as SUN, INC) in the last year and we feel that we have been leaving a lot of money and opportunity on the table. In order to maximize the potential and reach of our media properties and to enable further growth in to other markets, we have decided to take this round of funding. To further accelerate this expansion, we have acquired several blog networks, including a Canadian one, and we will be announcing that formally quite soon”

    In a sense, this is eating our own dogfood. We encourage startups to take as much money as they can early on in order to grow as rapidly as possible, which will bring with it a solid business plan. By expanding rapidly and letting the business plan emerge, we believe we can show fellow Canadian entrepreneurs how to do it, and our new VCs, Apprentice Partners from London, UK and placements from two Canadian pension funds, have helped us make this decision.

    Jonas and I would like to thank all of you for your support in the last year. Without you guys, we couldn’t have done this.

    Everyone welcome David aboard. And remember: with all this money, we’ll be hiring soon!

  • iNovia launches a new fund – Seed and early stage venture capital

    iNovia is announcing their new fund today. The new fund, which comes in at $107million is focused on Seed and Early Stage deals in the information technology, life sciences and cleantech sectors.

    iNovia, who most recently participated in the funding of StandOutJobs, has been engaging the startup community pretty directly lately and are usually visible at events like StartupCamp, blitzweekend and others. iNovia promotes itself as “Entrepreneurial Capital”. By they mean that they come from diverse and relevant backgrounds. Instead of being full of ex-banker, iNovia tends more towards entrepreneurs and people with experience working with startups.

    With its recent additions, the iNovia Capital management team now comprises a diverse group of professionals, all of whom have operational or financial backgrounds, coupled with strong technical and business expertise. iNovia has also established a network of Venture Partners and Entrepreneurs in Residence, who provide industry insight and expertise, along with access to a large network of collaborators.

    “Entrepreneurial Capital” can mean something else as well, and I think iNovia just might deliver. My definition of “Entrepreneurial Capital” is an Angel or VC who is just as hungry and hustles just as much as any startup. From coast to coast we hear complaints about poor dealflow for VCs and that this hurts their business. This may be true to an extent, but it is about to get a lot worse for those VCs who don’t show that same Entrepreneurial Spirit. Firms like iNovia, Montreal Startup, EVP and others are all going to be scooping up more and more of the best deals at very early stages simply because they will be engaged closely with the very communities that are giving birth to these startups.

    Technology Venture Capital is a startup business in Canada. It is young, the players are largely inexperienced and the market is small but emerging. This is a good thing. If you are a VC with money to spend, you can still win. There is a massive community forming that is almost exclusively to your benefit and that community is working harder than ever before now.

    We will be watching iNovia closely to see if they live up to all my hype.

  • StartupCamp Montreal 2 – May 15th, 2008

    startupcamp_eve2.jpg

    StartupCamp Montreal 2 has been announced. It is taking place May 15th and will be at the SAT again. I am a little sad that I will have to miss it because of another conference, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun!

    Make sure you sign up, and if you are a startup, you should consider presenting. StartupCamps are one of the few places you can get no-holds-barred feedback on your business plan. If you are interested in presenting, add yourself to the wiki.

    Date : May 15th, 2008
    Time : 6pm to 10pm EST
    Location : SAT – Société des arts technologiques

    They are really stepping it up for this event as well and will provide a bunch of help and support for the startups that are chosen to present.

    1) The top five startups selected to present at the event will have the opportunity to participate in a one-day pre-event workshop session. The goal being to have ?pitch? experts help the companies prepare ahead of the event. The workshop will be hosted by Austin Hill, John Stokes, Vincent Guyaux, and 2 other VC / marketing experts.

    2) Presenting companies will have 8 minutes to present, with 10 minutes of follow-up questions from the event Gurus and the audience.

    3) We will have ambassadors on hand prior to the event and during the event to help with match making and networking.

  • Rick Segal announces tour dates [lessons for VCs]

    Rick Segal is going on tour. The idea? Get the message out there about what he, and other VCs, are looking for when they evaluate new opportunities, and help entrepreneurs get a better understanding of what VCs try to do. He will also be providing some useful tools, like sample term sheets.

    This comes as there has been more publicity about the performance of private Venture Capital funds in Canada, and a significant amount of discussion about whether or not it is a good idea to start a company in Canada.

    There is definitely a perception out there of VCs in ivory towers who expect everything to come to them. This is in stark contrast to the attitude that most entrepreneurs encounter when in the valley or elsewhere with a strong VC ecosystem. You get used to seeing VCs out at practically every community event, listening closely and watching as entrepreneurs grow. Those traits are rare here. As someone said to me recently “In any other business, if you complained you had no customers, everyone would tell you you are an idiot. We need to get out there an hustle, we need to find those customers.”

    What Rick is doing is an example of how you can get out of your tower and start mingling with the plebs. The fact is, Canadian VCs aren’t poaching all sorts of great deals from other places, instead they rely on Canada to produce investible startups, and the best way to recognize that is to get involved and to take a long-term view. Venture Capital is only one piece of a big picture, but it is critical that VCs begin to mature along with our Angels and Entrepreneurs.

    There has been a significant amount of anti-VC sentiment in the Canadian startup community and it is probably more related to a feeling of VCs being an unknown than anything else.

    Here are the dates that are set up so far, starting on the east coast

    • April 14th Morning – Halifax NS
    • April 14th Evening – Moncton NB
    • April 15th Evening – St John’s NF

    If you want to register, email rick at jlaventures dot com with “VC Roundtable” in the subject.

  • I love my city, and so should you

    There are dozens great cities in this country that I love to spend time in, these are cities that are making an impact on the world and which get noticed by the world. Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver are the headliners with Calgary, Victoria, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Waterloo and Halifax all staking their own claims to greatness in unique ways.

    There have been a lot of blog posts lately talking about how someday a Canadian city can be our Silicon Valley. Toronto or Montreal have been the most vocal in trying to be recognized as a great valley equivalent, and even Vancouver seems to have jumped in the fray. The bidding is in comparing the communities of each city, and the prize is the title of being the Startup Hub of Canada.

    The point is being missed completely, and I have a surprise for everyone.

    The way I see it is that our job here in Canada is different, and we should stop wasting time trying to become Silicon Valley (who really uses that term?): Canada will never have a San Francisco. We will never have a Silicon Valley, we won?t even have a Boston or a Seattle. We won?t really even have a Boulder.

    The opportunity for Canada is first to build strong communities individually, and then the job is to build strong connections between those communities. Canadians (who are still here!) are different from those who flock to San Francisco in search of the holy grail. Canadians love their own city, and they aren?t very excited about the idea of all making their way to another city in search of success. Most of us will choose to make a go of it in our own backyard, where we are connected to our great communities and where we feel like we can all have an impact.

    We need to compete fiercely with eachother for the prize of being the top city to build a startup in Canada, but we also need to start creating a larger ecosystem where we can can the egos and start to make connections.

    I regularly impress myself with my own ignorance of what is going on in Vancouver especially. We constantly miss great stories just because the connections are so weak. Hopefully this blog can start to change that, but what is more likely is a tightening connection between BarCamp communities across the country.

    Open, Creative and Connected Communities are the next Silicon Valley. No city will be able to compete.