StartupNorth

Author: Jonas Brandon

  • CIX – Canadian Venture Capital Meetup

    cix.pngBack in June, StartupNorth was one of the first places to break the story of the death of the Toronto Venture Group. Every year the TVG had an event called the “Venture Forum”, which died when the TVG was shut down.

    It didn’t take long for the gap to get filled in however, and soon enough the CIX was announced. The premise is largely the same: Companies are pre-selected to pitch a room full of VCs who will presumably think about funding some of them. You need to apply to present, and then your company will be vetted by a selection committee. The cost to attend and present (if you are chosen) is about $1,000 in total, or $495 if you are just attending.

    Is CIX worth attending?

    This conversation got kicked off today on David Crow’s blog after David posted about CIX, Ali Asaria, the guy behind Well.ca, suggested that $500-$1,000 was actually a lot of money for a startup, no matter what stage they are at.

    It is true, $1,000 is a lot of cash, but the truth is: it isn’t too much. The question here isn’t about money, it is about value. Will you get anything out of 2 days in a conference full of other people who are trying to make this ship sail in Canada? I think you will. The thing is: It is completely up to you. You can find the agenda for the two days here.

    To make the best of this event you need to come at it with the right frame of mind: Make as many connections as possible, tell as many people as possible about your startup as you can, and finally, get as much advice as possible.

    In the run up to CIX we will have a few posts about kicking butt at CIX, for both the VCs and the Entrepreneurs.

    startupcamplogo_small1.png

    StartupCamp

    There is also StartupCamp, which we are putting on for free during CIX. We decided to do this because it will give a chance for the startups presenting at StartupCamp to get exposure to a crowd that doesn’t always come out to these events.

    Where companies that present at CIX will be somewhat established and will have already figured out their pitch, StartupCamp is for companies who are still trying to work out the details of their business plan.

    You can fill out this form to apply to pitch at StartupCamp. We’d love to have some unknown but awesome startups to show off!

    You can register for CIX here.

  • StartupCamp Toronto 2 – Tuesday, April 29th

    startupcamplogo_small1.pngStartupCamp Waterloo 2 was another big success, and we had a blast at StartupCamp Montreal, so we thought it was time we had another StartupCamp here in Toronto.

    The format for StartupCamp is simple: 5 Startups will have 5 minutes each to pitch themselves. The audience will then have twice as much time to grill them on everything from their marketing plan to the product itself.

    The 5 startups will be selected in advance.

    The event will be held on Tuesday April 29th at The Carlu in Toronto. We are putting on this StartupCamp during CIX, which is a new conference with a focus on connecting VC ready startups and VCs.

    The first run of tickets are available here. We will post more information as things come together.

    Sponsors

    Our kickoff sponsor is the Canadian Innovation Exchange.  If you are interested in sponsorship options, please get in touch.

    cix.png

  • Transcontinental acquires ThinData

    thindata_logo.gifThinData, a permission-based email marketing company based in Toronto, was acquired by Transcontinental today. The terms of the deal were not disclosed

    ThinData has a business model which is similar in many ways to that of CakeMail, who are based in Montreal, in that they often team up with agencies and other service providers who deliver the final product to the end-user.

    ThinData works with leading marketers and advertising agencies in Canada, and has received numerous awards and accolades for its innovative campaigns and its email marketing and online database management platform. ThinData, with its approximately 60 employees, will become part of the Premedia Group at Transcontinental under Nicky Milner’s responsibility.

    What is most interesting is that this acquisition was born out of previous work that the two companies have done together. I am sure that Transcontinental was more than happy to test the company first as a customer before approaching them about the acquisition. Just one of many reasons to treat all of your customers well.

    This all-Canadian marriage also shows that there are opportunities and potential exits right here in Canada.

  • Big news in Canada's wireless spectrum bid

    wirelessnorth.gifTom has some great news about some new entrants in to the bidding for wireless spectrum here in Canada.

    Tom also suggests that Quebecor, the Quebec-based conglomerate, has very disruptive plans for their bid. This is important news for startups because until now it has been difficult to develop innovative wireless applications and services in Canada, with a more competitive market, wireless carriers will be more inclined to support mobile startups.

  • Founder's Lunch coming to Toronto

    founders_lunch.pngThe details are few and far between, but the invitations have already started going out. Founder’s Lunch is a Toronto take on the famous, but even more exclusive valley event Founder’s Brunch. If you are interested in coming to the next event, drop them an email and get on the list.

    Many will argue that the last thing we need is another Invite-only event, and I can understand your point, but I can say that my participation in some invite-only groups such as StartupSwarm and others has been really beneficial to me personally and my startup. The main benefit comes from everyone’s ability to be open and honest with eachother.

    So, if you are interested in coming to Founder’s Lunch, email them at the address on the website, and if you are feeling a little pissed off that you aren’t getting invited to some events you think you would benefit from, drop me a note. I want to hear from you.

    This event is not organized by StartupNorth.

  • MontrealStartup – A new $3m fund for Montreal startups

    monteral_star_up_logo_small.jpgWe spoke with John Stokes from MontrealStartup last week about an announcement they will be making today. They are announcing a new $3 million fund to invest in early stage startups on the Island of Montreal.

    MontrealStartup is a unique type of VC, they are a consortium of 20 partners, mainly entrepreneurs, based in Montreal who want to do what is best for Montreal. The investors in the fund include John Stokes, Daniel Drouet, JS Cournoyer, Alan MacIntosh, Austin Hill and Mathieu Duffar.

    At $3 million, it is also the smallest fund I am aware of, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing however. Having a small fund is going to force Montreal Startup to act and behave just like a startup. They are going to know exactly what you are going through, because they will be dealing with many similar bumps themselves. It will also force them to learn to adapt quickly in a way that other VCs may not feel the pressure to do.

    This new fund, which is composed of $2 million from The Ministry of Economic Development and a further $1 million directly from MontrealStartup, will be managed completely by MontrealStartup.

    The fund will look at investments between $50,000 and $400,000 to be made in startups who are focused on the Web, Wireless and New Media. MontrealStartup most recently invested in StandoutJobs, and will start investing through this new fund immediately. They are looking for startups who have solid ideas with some market potential but they aren’t necessarily looking for complete business plans. What I like about Montreal Startup, from what I have seen so far, is that they are focused both on providing capital to startups, and using their well established networks through their investors, who are all successful entrepreneurs.

    Due to the size of the fund, there is practically no management fee and the only opportunity for Montreal Startup to profit is to find the best deals that exist in Montreal and then to work hard to make sure that those startups are successful.

    This is good news for Montreal. I am looking forward to hearing about some deals getting done. If successful, Montreal Startup will be one of a new type of VCs in Canada who are far more engaged with local startup communities than ever before. The future success of these funds depends heavily on the amount of local startup activity, and it is in their interest to foster that in a more direct way than the typical VC has done so far.

  • Advertise on Startupnorth.ca

    StartupNorth.ca and WirelessNorth.ca will be offering sponsorship opportunities in the near future. 6 placements will be available on each site and accepted advertisers will match the message and editorial policies of StartupNorth.

    Specifications

    • 125 by 125 pixel size (IAB Square Button)
    • Preferably company or product logo (No animation)
    • Standard Web Image Type (JPEG, GIF, or PNG)
    • Image links back to company website
    • If you need the unit created we have available a talented designer

    If you are interested, please contact us for pricing:

  • friendroll and toplinks – WordPress plugins from Thornley Fallis

    toplinks.gifI thought it was worth mentioning that Joseph Thornley, who blogs at ProPr and is based in Ottawa, has decided to eat some of his own Social Media dogfood and has released two wordpress plugins today along with 76Design.

    FriendsRoll reminds me a lot of, well, a traditional blogroll. The big difference however is that it has a form which friends can fill out and request to be added to your FriendsRoll. It is a cool and simple way to keep blogrolls a little more fresh over time. Right now they usually get stale with old blogs that aren’t maintained, or people who are not blogging about different, less relevant, subjects.

    The other widget, TopLinks, automatically keeps track of what sites you are linking to in your blog posts and it lists them in the widget, ordered by popularity.

    Both of these widgets help create mini little networks between blogs, but require little ongoing maintenance. I will be installing them on my personal blog as soon as I update my template.

  • Alertle – Simplified and Customizable RSS reading

    alertle.pngAlertle, a Toronto, Ontario startup is an RSS Reader that is focused on breaking out beyond the more technically inclined crowd that uses services like Google Reader and Bloglines.

    The company, which has been bootstrapped so far, has been making quick progress. I have used their reader a few times in the last month and there has been obvious progress on the UI and the general flow of the applications.

    When you first log in, the most noticible difference between Alertle and other RSS readers is their focus on “bundles” of feeds. While most readers come with a large set of default feeds, Alertle takes it a step further and provides almost 20 bundles, each with well over a dozen feeds. These include bundles like “Life”, “Autos”, “Videos”, “Nasdaq” and more.

    Alertle really goes beyond just being a feed reader and really offers an easy way for a novice user to change how the browse the web in general. Their interface is relatively easy, but does take some getting used to (at least if you approach it from a traditional feed-reading mindset like I did), but I have found that it grows on you. My one complaint is that the titles of the feeds, which appear below nice large icons, are often cut short and are hard to read. I would prefer to have the titles displayed clearly and in full somehow.

    I was able to easily import my existing subscriptions from Google Reader using OPML, and I think that with a little tweaking I could really get used to this interface. I really appreciate how uncluttered the display window is for the news item that is currently being read, and the list of unread posts is also clear and easy to navigate.

    Alertle plans to generate revenue through advertising and potentially by offering a premium product for enterprise customers. I can imagine that there will be other revenue opportunities for them as well if they manage to build up their user base, such as charging for inclusion as a default feed and generating revenue through Google search referral if they can convince users to make Alertle their default homepage.

    Contact Varun Mathur

  • LearnHub.com launches – Teach and Learn Online

    learnhub_logo_100×48.pngJonas and I dropped by the Savvica offices today for the launch of LearnHub.com. LearnHub is the first site from Savvica since their funding in the fall of 2007. We previously covered the return of Savvica’s founders, John and Malgosia, back to Toronto after a year in San Francisco. Savvica is based in Toronto and recently took significant investment from Indian e-learning company Educomp.

    LearnHub TeamLearnHub is in many ways the evolution of their first product, Nuvvo, which was a much more traditional learning management system. LearnHub on the other hand has a lot more social networking functionality and the “community” model feels a lot more engaging.

    Users can connect with other people, can join communities and can help build courses in those communities by bundling tools such as “Debates”, “Lessons”, “Tests” and “Discussions”. There is also an explicit “Authority Ranking” in LearnHub that rewards users who participate more regularly and in more ways.

    Once you have built a course, you then have the option of charging for it. LearnHub becomes a marketplace for online courses where experts in a subject area can quickly and easily build courses and then make money by charging for them. There is a lot of potential here if LearnHub can get enough exposure and adoption inside the right communities. They then also have to attract a mass audience who will pay for these courses.

    By running their own support site as a community on LearnHub, Savvica is eating its own dogfood. The support site gives the best demonstration of how a community can be structured and how the different components of the community can be used differently.

    In talking to the John and Malgosia, it became obvious that this is just the beginning of their long-term strategy. Without giving away the secret sauce, I can say that I was happy to hear that their revenue model was much more mature than you might assume up front.