StartupNorth

Category: Events

  • Founders & Funders: Nov 18, 2014

    It’s that time again – to bringing together the people that start emerging technology businesses and the people that fund them, early.

    Who should attend?

    Uhm, yeah. Founders & Funders.

    Founders

    You are a founder of a emerging technology company or a technology-enabled company. You are actively raising a round of capital or starting to think about raising your next round. Feels like we’re leaning to Seed and Series A – basically if you’re name is Tobi or Ryan most investors know who you are 😉

    Funders

    Space for funders will be limited. We have room for approximately 60 people. And we like to keep the ratio of 3:1 founders to funders. This means we roughly have room for 15 funders. We’re going to be picky, the target will be Seed and Series A.

    Why should you attend?

    Relatively small and intimate gathering of other emerging technology company founders and the people that fund them. The funder mix ranges from individuals that write first and very small cheques to larger institutional funds.

    • Social event – no formal pitches
    • Community is the framework – chance to talk to other founders about the current fundraising climate

    What to expect?

    It is a chance to have a bite to eat and a drink with other founders and investors that are actively investing in Toronto companies. It’s a chance to figure what has worked for others, to figure out which investors you want to spend more time with, and just connect.

    How do I attend?

    Submissions will end on Nov 10.

  • We Should Be Building Empires

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    Last chance to get your tickets to this incredible event!

    We don’t build a lot of empires around here.

    Empires are big, they grow fast, and they use momentum to determine where to apply resources. Empires don’t respond, they set the new rules.

    Carnegie. Rockefeller. Gates. Zuckerberg.

    Lutke. McDerment. Baker.

    We’ve had empires come and go, but we haven’t built the sort that stick around for 100 or 1,000 years.

    We need to startup building empires.

    In 2008 we held a conference in Toronto. Some of you might remember it. We were going to call it something like StartupNation, StartupConf or something else,. but we decided to call it StartupEmpire. Why?

    We thought it was important to put a stake in the ground about the kinds of companies Toronto startups needed to think about building: Bigger, badder and more resilient.

    Next week we are re-doing it. StartupEmpire is taking place in Halifax this time, a startup community that is in much the state that Toronto’s was 5+ years ago. It’s time to focus our gaze out in to the world and to say ‘”I’m coming for you.”

    You can hear from some of the most ambitious and experienced entrepreneurs in Canada right now including April Dunford, John Baker, Dan Martell, Bala Kamallakharan and a lot more.

    Get your tickets now, there are only about a dozen left!

  • Ontario Startups…On A Train

    [Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Brydon Gilliss. Brydon has held a number of roles but most recently he is the driving force behind lots of awesome in Guelph including a coworking space, ThreeFortyNine; a personal accelerator, Startupify.me; events, DemoCampGuelph; and a startup, 20Skaters.] 

    Have you ever wished for just another minute or two for that elevator pitch you delivered? What if, instead of an elevator ride, you were locked on a train with that investor?

    Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide!

    For the third year running, the Ontario Startup Train is back on July 9th. We will have several private, chartered cars on a VIA train with first class service and our own bar car where we’ll host our on-train events. We pack the train with startups, investors, and various players in our startup community and travel together to attend The International Startup Festival in Montreal.

    “The concentration of the opportunities and discussions on the train blew me away. By the time we got to Montreal, referrals were flying.” Lloyd Longfield

    Tickets include first class travel to Montreal from Toronto, our on-train activities, full conference access, and time in our Ontario Startup Tent at the festival to showcase your startup. If you already have your festival ticket, we do have train-only tickets.

    Get your ticket now before the train sells out, again.

  • Hardware Workshop: May 2-3

    Step 1. Start a hardware company.
    Step 2. ?
    Step 3. Profit.

    If it were only that easy. You can ask  Pebble, InteraXon, Thalmic, Bionym, PUSH Strength, Kiwi Wearables, ClearPath Robotics among others about the challenges of designing, testing, manufacturing and distributing a hardware-based company. There are a lot of subtle , unexpected complexity in moving from bits to atoms. And one of the best ways to learn about complexity is from operators made mistakes and found a way to do it.

    There is a Toronto based event happening called the Hardware Workshop happening May 2-3, 2014. The event is hosted by Marc Barros (Moment) and organized locally by Katherine Hague (Shoplocket) and Zak Homuth (Upverter). It features an amazing set of people with real world experience in all aspects of building hardware-based businesses, including:

    It looks like a great workshop at an amazing price. Looks like the workshop costs are covering the out-of-pocket expense of the organizers for food to allow participants to focus on the content and learning opportunity. (Seriously, do the math $75 * 75 = $5,625 barely covers the catering costs).

    “What makes this workshop unique is the quality of the content, the deep operational experience of the teachers, and the long term connections you will make. Hand curated, each teacher covers a unique topic that falls within the startup’s life cycle from an idea to reaching market fit.”

    If you’re interested in learning about building a hardware startup and about the mistakes that others have made (so you can avoid them). This should be a fun 2 days. Apply to attend.

    [Disclosure: I am an investor in Upverter. ]

  • Mesh 14 Hosted Startup Program

    I love Mesh Conference. I’ve called it “Toronto’s most important DIY conference“. It is an event that ebbs and flows with the opinions and interests of it’s founders:

    It starts like a joke, did you hear the one about the marketer, the lawyer, the journalist, the founder and travel guy? These guys are all successful in their own right. And they continue to bring together a unique viewpoint that is different than the corporate marketing events and tradeshows. This is something about the underlying currents at the intersection of technology, marketing, politics and culture. I’m hoping they continue to bring people who challenge  existing ideas and frameworks. (My keynote invite would go to Shanley Kane of Model View Culture.)

    One of the interesting additions to the program has been a separate startup track. I’d like to see a little more overlap in the participating startups with the audience and attendees interest. It is great to see early-stage companies getting local support to reach the Mesh audience. The Mesh 14 Hosted Startup Program provides:

    • Complimentary registration;
    • Demo Alley;
    • and 15 Minutes of Fame presentation.

    Apply Now | 60 days left

    Photo Credit

  • Where’s Waldo?

    I’ve written about CIX Top 20 Follow @CIXCommunity in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. To follow my pattern here is my post for 2013. Full disclosure: I sit on the Advisory Board for CIX. 

    There are 3 core events in the Canadian startup calendar:

    There are other happenings and gatherings ranging from NxNE to HPX Digital to Mesh to the C100 events. If you need a reminder about the state of the Toronto startup ecosystem, make sure you check out my now 14 month old but still relevant post, Don’t Panic.

    Each of the above events is optimized for different audience needs. CIX brings the  viewpoint of Canadian investors (if you care). The advisory board is primarily venture capitalists (a few lawyers, a couple of CEOs and  one evangelist):

    • Roger Chabra, Rho Ventures
    • Boris Wertz, Version One Ventures
    • Mark MacLeod, Freshbooks (recovering VC)
    • Barry Gekiere, IAF
    • Joe Catalfamo, Summerhill VP
    • Justin LaFayette, Georgian Partners

    The advisory board is 44 people big. And approximately 30 are doing some form of investment. It’s almost 70% are actively making investments in technology companies. There is very strong Canadian VC and investor representation in the group that advise and plan the conference content.

    And it shows in the content, of the 67 scheduled speakers (as of Nov 14), 19 of the speakers are from the advisory board – that’s 28% of the content. (It’s even higher if you include partners and others from firms of advisory board members). If you want to know what Canadian VCs and investors are thinking, this is the best way to see what is important. They define this conference. They provide the content and the voices at the conference.

    So why go?

    CIX gives you insight in to the types of companies, IP and traction that Canadian investors are currently looking for. It is the barometer of the “high potential growth technology companies” in Canada. It will be interesting to see what everyone thinks are the hot companies and trends. The panels and policy discussions are the things that Canadian investors are grasping and struggling with. It will be interesting to hear the conversations.

    You might argue that as an entrepreneur you don’t care about these conversations. They don’t help you grow your business, build your product, or acquire customers. But they do provide you insight into the mind set of the people you are trying to raise money from. That might be the thing that gives you an unfair advantage in understanding their decision making process this year.

    I love that 2 of my personal investments Upverter and OpenCare made the Top 20. Full disclosure: My employer, OMERS Ventures, is an investor in 360 incentives. I’m also excited to check in on Breather, Bionym, Axonify, Hubba and others. The CIX Top 20 has turned out some of the best companies in the past 5 years.

    It is possible to make your luck at CIX (just remember the preferred method of connecting).

    Photo Credits

    AttributionNoncommercialShare Alike Some rights reserved by Jameson42

  • Fireside Chat with Albert Wenger – Oct. 23rd

    Screen Shot 2013-08-08 at 5.00.12 PMWe’re very excited to host Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures on Wednesday October 23rd 2013 in Toronto, at the spanking new OneEleven Accelerator, from 5:30pm to 8:00pm.

    William Mougayar, founder of Startup Management will interview Albert on stage, and there will be a Q&A period with the audience. We will talk Network Effects, the changing landscape in venture capital, advice to entrepreneurs, government and technology, privacy and security, raising money from U.S. VCs, and anything you’ll be asking him. This is a unique event, not to be missed by any one involved in a Tech Startup or ecosystem.

    Albert Wenger is a partner at Union Square Ventures (USV), a New York-based early stage VC firm focused on investing in disruptive networks. USV portfolio companies include:Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Etsy, Kickstarter, Wattpad,Kik and Shapeways
    Before joining USV, Albert was the president of del.icio.us through the company’s sale to Yahoo. He previously founded or co-founded five companies, including a management consulting firm (in Germany), a hosted data analytics company, a technology subsidiary for Telebanc (now E*Tradebank), an early stage investment firm, and most recently (with his wife), DailyLit, a service for reading books by email or RSS. His wife is also the co-founder of Ziggeo.

    Albert is on the Board of Edmodo, Shapeways, Heyzap, Twillio, Foursquare, AMEE, Covestor, 10gen, Wattpad,
    Firebase, Sift Science and Tumblr (prior to its sale to Yahoo). Albert graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in economics and computer science, and holds a Ph.D. in Information Technology from MIT.

    Location

    OneEleven, 111 Richmond Street West, 5th Floor, Toronto. OneEleven is Toronto’s newest accelerator. It’s your chance to visit this brand new 15,000 square feet facility, dedicated to accelerate the commercialization of cutting edge research and development for the economic prosperity of the region.

    Buy your ticket

    This event is organized by Startup Management and hosted by OneEleven. It was made possible due to the generous Patronage of Wattpad, Sponsorship of OMERS Ventures, and Support of Ryerson Futures.

    SUM Logo Horizontal                       Wattpad logo_200

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    Startup Management is a knowledge resource for growing, scaling-up and managing startups.

    Wattpad is the world’s largest community for reading and sharing stories.

    OMERS Ventures invests in companies with significant growth potential and market opportunities, seeking partners with a shared vision of building a vibrant knowledge economy.

    Ryerson Futures is an accelerator for early stage companies connected to the Digital Media Zone at Ryerson University, and manages a seed fund.

    OneEleven is a unique centre for commercialization that will create the talent and technologies that shape our future in ‘Big Data’.

    Eventbrite - A Conversation with Albert Wenger, Union Square Ventures

  • Make stuff

    Maker Faire

    I’m really looking forward to Maker Faire Toronto. It is happening Saturday and Sunday, September 21-22, 2013 at the Wychwood Barns. This is an amazing opportunity to celebrate the Maker Movement. I’m excited to see the inventions, the creativity, the resourcefulness of people to solve problems, to inspire. To be proud of the things they’ve built.

    “That is, no matter what the thing is you’re building, it’s deeply gratifying and incredibly educational to perform the act of creating something, anything.” — Christopher O’Brien

    I am really excited about the opportunity to bring my kids. I’m excited to teach them about entrepreneurship. But even more importantly, I’m excited to provide them access to learn and to explore technology. My friends Tara Brown and Sean Bonner opened LA Makerspace focused on providing a kid-friendly space. My kids have asked me about building robots, making candy and taking apart their toys.  The eldest is now 6 years old, and her problem solving skills and attention are developing where this will be a transformational experience.

    “We are making the tools for passion. When I look around, I don’t see any apathy here.” — Nolan Bushnell

    Much of the DIY culture emerged out of the Homebrew Computer Club in Silicon Valley. And while not directly responsible for the success of many of the companies that emerged, it seeded a culture and the connections between folks that started Apple Computer, Osbourne Computer and others. This is the ground floor, the Mechatronics department at UWaterloo accepted their first class in 2003.  Bufferbox was started in 2011 and sold to Google in 2012. This is a very interesting space if you look at the emergence of other area startups like InteraXon, Thalmic Labs , Upverter, Matterform, Bionym and others. 

    Bring your kids. These are very interesting times indeed.

  • Atlantic House @ Grow next week in Vancouver

    voltadiamond

    The buzz has been awesome about the GROW conference next week. Just a few weeks after Startup Fest in Montreal. The summer season is moving quickly…

    A Startupnorth we’ve helped organize the Ontario House along with Communitech and the Waterloo community, and now we are announcing that along with Volta we are organizing the Atlantic Canada House.

    In this case Reza Kazemipour the San Francisco based CEO of Oris4, a Halifax company, has stepped up and personally funded the house. Amazing to see such commitment from the local community.

    The Diamond on Powell street and if you are around, stop by between 6 PM and 10 PM for a drink and see what Atlantic Canadian Entrepreneurs are working on.

    We still have a few tables available and if you are Atlantic Canadian company looking to showcase your product to West Coast Entrepreneurs and Investors, apply to Milan @ Volta ([email protected]) and he will hook you up with a table.

    Currently, from our neck of the woods we will have Compilr, topLog, DraftCam, EmailOpened, ModestTree and Oris4 with few others to be added to the list shortly.

  • Music Hack Day – Aug 10-11

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    “Music is the soundtrack of our lives.” – Dick Clark

    There are an amazing set of Toronto based music startups emerging.

    It should come as no surprise that with a burgeoning community there are events. Paul Osman (LinkedIn) who is now part of the team at SoundCloud and Rdio, The Echo Nest and Unspace are hosting:

    musichackday

    • To fast prototype and create brand new music apps (web, mobile or physical) in just 24hrs.
    • To bring together the music industry and the developer community.
    • To highlight and showcase the platforms and API’s of companies working in and around music tech.
    • To foster cross-platform and cross-device innovation.

    Looks like a great event for local startups and developers to get access to APIs and hopefully distribution.

    Music Hack Day Toronto will be held on August 10th-11th, 2013 at the The Glass Factory, 99 Sudbury St.

    If you are interested in participating in the fast prototyping and creation of brand new and innovative music apps, be sure to register (tickets are free) for Music Hack Day Toronto today.