StartupNorth

Author: Jonas Brandon

  • Where are all you brilliant startups?

    Just a reminder to all of you, any of you, brilliant (and not so brilliant) startups. You can get in touch with us and tell us about your startup.

    We can’t promise that we will profile every startup that comes in, but we can promise that we will try. The number of Canadian startups getting in touch to get profiled has tapered off in the last few weeks and we would love to see more. If you really want to get a head start, fill out this form and let the reviews begin!

    While we do cover a lot of events, post a lot of commentary, organize a few events, and have things like our great series on Angel Investors, we see profiles and big announcements as job #1, and the more help we get from you all the better we can be.

  • Want to go to SxSW? You can get $687 in support

    sxsw.jpgTomorrow morning at 9am (Friday, February 8th 2008) there will be a meeting at Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada?s Toronto offices (151 Young St, 3rd floor boardroom) to discuss their subsidy for any companies who are going to be going to SxSW. From what I understand, there was a meeting about it in Montreal today. I am trying to get some more information and will post back what I can find. Read this PDF for most of the information you need.

    There are a lot of Canadians going to SxSW and while the document names a few, it only scratches the surface. They mention panelists: Kris Krug from Raincity Studios, Steve Bocska from Hothead Games, Jennifer Ouano from Elastic Entertainment, Ron Thiele from Xpan Interactive, and Keith Clarkson from Xenophile Media, and I will add Ben Vinegar from Freshbooks.

    Keep your eyes out for Jonas and I as well, we are working out the details as we speak.

    RSVP to [email protected] if you will be able to make it.

  • BlitzWeekend – ad-hoc startup launchpad

    blitz1.pngWhen Heri first announced BlitzWeekend, I thought it was a slightly better take on the various StartupWeekends which had been painfully going on. That would have been the easy thing to do, but Heri and the guys have taken it a few steps further. Blitzweekend will take place on March 1st and 2nd 2008.

    The result is less of a throwaway StartupWeekend and more like a miniature version of Y-Combinator or TechStars. Instead of building one big project, and then leaving the day-to-day operations up to a few unwitting volunteers, BlitzWeekend is a chance to kickstart your own startup that you will be moving ahead with.

    Because of that, BlitzWeekend will have a much more well rounded crowd than the normal hack-fests that we are used to. The sponsors, who include BDO Dunwoody, Embrase, Globalex and iNovia Capital, will all be at BlitzWeekend to provide early support and guidance to the startups.

    To accompany the weekend, BlitzMaker has also been released. It is a tool to help teams form, share their ideas and to organize before BlitzWeekend.

    BlitzWeekend is also reaching out to teams from beyond just Montreal. I would love to see a team from Toronto or Waterloo make the trip over to Montreal. The crew in Montreal has offered to help with expenses by organizing some couches and possibly contributing to travel costs.

    Heri described the event like this

    – we have partners and sponsors like iNovia Capital (VC fund specializing in early stage funding), BDO, Globalex, Embrase. Actually, it will be an opportunity for any new entrepreneur because the most promising projects will have access to advice from business consultants and key networks. You can view it as a launchpad for startups, à la TechStars

    – we will have experts for the event, in the case a team get “stuck” in major problems. each team is going to have “joker cards”, allowing them to call an expert in one specifi domain (technology, design, business plan, marketing etc.)

    – we will have a “make” track for developers or designers who just want to create a cool technology and are not sure yet about how to do a business plan. However, we will have a “startup” track, and we will have a panel of “judges” who will be giving them valuable feeedback about their product and business plan.

  • StandoutJobs raises $2m from iNovia Capital

    The news is finally public that StandoutJobs, a Montreal, Quebec company who we mentioned in our earlier post about DEMO08, has raised $2million from iNovia Capital.

    standout.pngWith this announcement and their launch at DEMO, StandoutJobs is taking back the veil on their business model. When we first saw them almost a year ago, StandoutJobs looked like a recruiting company that did videos, and we didn’t find it very compelling. I got to hear more a few months ago however over supper with Ben Yoskovitz, and it started to make a lot more sense. StandoutJobs will be providing a SaaS solution to companies that essentially lets them build a complete hiring page that is much more rich and user-focused than the normal “email [email protected]”. The pages are fully customizable and seem to be focused on helping the company display much more current and directly useful information to the potential hires. For a more detailed overview, check out this post on Mashable.

    inovia.pngiNovia Capital bills itself as a “seed and early-stage venture capital fund” with offices in Alberta (Edmonton and Calgary) as well as Montreal. They seem to be increasingly active with their investments and I am impressed that they took the entire $2million round to themselves, which likely speaks to the solid team that StandoutJobs has in place as well as iNovia’s willingness to get out there and shoulder some risk.

    In case you think you are being hit with a case of Deja Vu, you are right: StandoutJobs did previously announce that they had raised funding from Garage Ventures Canada, but this seems to have fallen apart. On the StandoutJobs blog:

    “As well, it?s time to announce a bit of news with respect to our financing. Although we announced some time ago that we raised money with Garage Technology Ventures Canada, that did not in fact come to pass. As we got deeper into the process with Garage, it was clear that it was not the best fit for us. We wish Garage the best of luck.”

    It seems that whatever came to pass with Garage did not take away from the credibility of StandoutJobs or the team there, as iNovia seems to have quickly seen the opportunity.

    Congratulations to everyone at iNovia and StandoutJobs.

  • Canadian Companies at DEMO08

    demo08logo2.jpgThere are 5+1 Canadian companies on the slate at DEMO08 today and for the next 2 days.

    DEMO is a sort of launch pad for companies who want to make a big splash with a launch or an announcement. It boils down to 2 days of pitches.

    Up front, DEMO has never made a lot of sense to me. You pay ~$18,000 just to get up on stage, and spend at least another $10,000 getting yourself ready. So, $20,000 to get up and pitch to a room full of people there to see a few dozen other presentations as well, all from difference industries and disciplines. The place probably isn’t crawling with customers, and my guess is that most of the presenting companies are funded already to some degree.

    That said, have spoken to a few people who have presented, or will be presenting this week, it is more obvious what DEMO is selling.

    Polish – To demo at DEMO, you have to have a polished and perfected pitch. You have 6 minutes to make a huge auditorium more excited about YOUR launch than all the others who will take the same stage.

    Exposure – Everything at DEMO is recorded and available on the web. I can personally admit to watching almost ALL the DEMO pitches every year. Some of them are just incredibly terrible while others inspire and impress.

    A Deadline – Once you launch at DEMO, you are going to get enough exposure that you have to have something for the public that is worth talking about. It is better to release early, and DEMO seems to drive a lot of startups to do that.

    Good luck to all the Canadian startups. I will post links to their presentations here when they are online.

  • It's a wrap – Founders and Funders Toronto

    The inaugural Founders & Funders went off without a hitch. It was a fantastic evening. It wouldn’t have been possible without our sponsors, thank you very much Microsoft and JLA Ventures, the event wouldn’t have happened without their support.

    Jess and Chris from Istoica snapped a fantastic pictures of the event and the attendees. The gallery from Founders & Funders event is available. Maybe we should do a set of hockey cards of Founders & Funders. On the back of each card it could have stats like amount raised, fund size, number of deals, etc. Until then, check out the pictures from Istoica.

    TechCapital and AideRSS Anand Agarawala, Bumptop Bogdan Chimleski Francis Fast

    Craig Fitzpatrick StartupNorth - Jevon & Jonas Tom Purves Leila Boujnane

    Selim Teja and Mark Skapinker Stephen Benson

    The goal of Founders & Funders is to create a social environment where the people who fund companies and the people who start companies can begin conversations outside of the pitch. As an attendee, I’ll extend an invitation to connect you with any other attendee you might have missed.

    Thank you for making the inaugural Toronto Founders & Funders a success. We look forward to hosting another event later in 2008.

    Cheers,
    David & Jevon
    Jevon and David

  • smartpatterns.com – Create your own Knitting Pattern

    smartpatterns.pngI wasn’t exactly sure what to think when I first took a look at smartpatterns.com, a Waterloo, On startup that has 2 employees and has been in development since 2003. Smartpatterns is a windows application, not a web application, that lets you create knitting patterns using a drag-and-drop interface.

    Once you have created an image of the sweater you want, and have added the proper measurements as well, the software will produce a standard knitting pattern that will let even an amateur create a complex piece, such as a sweater.

    Etsy.com is a great example of how a company can build and leverage an Arts and Crafts community in order to build a healthy market. I think SmartPatterns, with their knitting-specific tools, has a huge opportunity to create a market for custom-made knitted items. This might sound crazy to some, but there might be a market for it: On-Demand custom knitted sweaters, scarfs, afghans and more.

    One thing I loved about Indochino was their on-demand access to production labour that allows them to create tailored suits on demand. In that case, Indochino outsources to specific tailors in China.

    I don’t know a lot of knitters, but the ones I do know all love to create things for their friends and family. I can imagine that they might enjoy getting paid to knit just as much. A sort of return to a more primitive economy, but with all the efficiencies and possibilities of a piece of custom-design software like SmartPatterns.

    The opportunity for SmartPatterns is to provide their software so people can design the perfect item and then SmartPatterns provides the knitting pattern to the knitter, who will produce the item and then ship it to the buyer directly.

    Is there are market for custom-made knitted goods? I am not sure, but I am convinced that it is far more scalable and profitable to become a platform for a market than it is to simply be selling software to a small community of users. That said, SmartPatterns seems to have a solid tool that produces solid results for their users. That can’t be underestimated.

    Since their launch in December, SmartPatterns has brought in over 1000 paying customers and they have sold their first pattern to a yarn manufacturer (which I understand gets included in the yarn as a perk). That shows me that there is a huge need for their core product and that their opportunities to generate more profit, such as the way I suggest, could be something they experiment with as they grow their core market.

    SmartPatterns is Angel funded, but is currently seeking a new round of funding.

  • See you tomorrow night – StartupCamp Montreal

    Wow, we are just coming off a great night last night at Founders and Funders and tomorrow we are hopping on the train and making our way to Montreal for StartupCamp Montreal.

    The final lineup for the pitches are

    1. Cozimo
    2. Tungle
    3. Streametrics
    4. iGotcha Media
    5. YourTeleDoctor

    I am still trying to get over how much interest there has been in Montreal for StartupCamp. Kudos to Philippe for putting things together so quickly and so well. I will cover the night live on the StartupNorth Twitter page. Tune in!

    Now, lets see how well the iPartee widget works:

  • Founders and Funders Toronto Kick Off Questions

    The Founders and Funders dinner takes place tonight in Toronto. We really wish we could have invited everyone who asked for a ticket, but we have been sold out for a while now.

    I really don’t want to miss out on hearing from all of you, even if you can’t make it to Toronto for the dinner tonight, so I thought I would post the questions we will post tonight at the dinner. Please comment below with your thoughts on the state of funding in Canada. Answering these questions isn’t a requirement at the dinner, but we wanted to set the tone of the discussion to focus as much as possible about what we can do to change things in Canada.

    • Do Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists get enough recognition for the deals they do in Canada?
    • Do Canadian universities inspire and support entrepreneurship? Could a “Startup Co-Op” program help?
    • What is the minimum amount of funding a startup should be able to deliver a product with?
    • Is the Dragon’s Den the most visible face of Canadian Entrepreneurship right now? What is wrong with that?

    twitter.jpg

    Some of these questions may change by tonight depending on the answers we get. As you can see, the Dragon’s Den question tends to invite some good responses!

  • BrightSpark: Venture Capital is not what it used to be, we are changing

    A lot of us like to speculate on the state of Venture Capital in Canada; we all have a vested interest in the existence of a healthy and competitive market. For BrightSpark, the truth has been much more obvious.

    brightsparkl.gifBrightSpark, with over $100 million under management, raised its first fund in 1999 and its second fund in 2004. Co-Founded by Tony Davis and Mark Skapinker, the fund positioned itself as a “seed and early-stage software venture fund” for the Canadian market with offices in Montreal and Toronto. They have been active even recently with great deals like NowPublic, b5Media and MobiVox, 9 recent investments, and a few more to make in their second fund.

    The BrightSpark team, a bunch of experienced entrepreneurs, was (and is) perfectly suited for the job we have been asking VCs to take on here in Canada: early stage financing with heavy duty support capabilities. It should have been a perfect combination, and one would hope that they could have done quite well in the last few years with the resurgent tech bubble.

    I wanted to know what was next for BrightSpark, as I had heard a lot of divergent rumors recently: some said BrightSpark was raising a new fund, others said they were going to close up shop. Earlier this week I had a chance to speak with Mark Skapinker about Brightspark, the Canadian Venture Capital market, and what he might do to fix it all if he could.

    Mark came right out and said that the Canadian Venture Capital market is changing and that BrightSpark has been watching this change closely for some time. He believes that a lot of funds are going to face some troubled waters ahead and that BrightSpark is one of the few well positioned funds to survive in this new environment. It was clear from our conversation that BrightSpark believes Venture Capital in Canada absolutely has to change, and soon.

    Mark and the team at BrightSpark feel that there, quite simply, just isn?t enough early stage deal flow right now to sustain large funds. They also have the sense that there just aren?t enough repeat entrepreneurs in Canada right now who have the experience to create great startups.

    I asked Mark what he would do to improve the financing environment in Canada which led us to a discussion about BrightSpark 3.0, Inc.

    BrightSpark 3.0 is a company (not a fund) that will exist to Create, Build and Operate internet businesses. The company will be focused on creating new Internet and cash generative Web-2.0 style startups and is fundraising now.

    So what does this mean? For the time being, BrightSpark will focus on supporting the growth of companies already in the portfolio. Over the next year, BrightSpark will make a decision about raising a third fund, which would be in the $50 – $75 million range.

    From our vantage point this story is both a bit sad and a bit hopeful. Some of the the top entrepreneurs in the country went out in 1999 and raised a Venture Capital fund so they could change the industry; here we are, almost 10 years later with a market still in dire need of change. The BrightSpark team now has a chance to go back to their roots and build their own startups; hopefully we will see funds stepping up to fill the funding gap left behind.

    If we needed a reason to get the discussion about how Venture Capital needs to change in Canada kick-started, this is it. We have a top fund feeling the model is so broken, that they need to fundamentally change the way they operate. What does this mean for other VCs in Canada? What does it mean for the budding and growing startup community?