StartupNorth

Category: Site News

  • b5media + Technorati merger talks over?

    This morning a slide from a PowerPoint deck outlining a potential merger between JLA-backed blog network b5media and blog search engine Technorati was leaked.

    Techcrunch says that the deal has been called off. Toronto based b5media has been looking to raise a significant series B and seems to been exploring doing the deal as part of a merger, hence the Technorati talks. We have an email out to Blog King Jeremy Wright, CEO of b5, to find out more.

    Till then feel free to play armchair quarterback in the comments.

  • Radiant Core acquired by Zerofootprint

    Radiant CoreRadiant Core has been acquired by Zerofootprint Software. Radiant Core was a Toronto-based web design and development shop led by Jay Goldman and Mike Glenn.  Zerofootprint is a Toronto-based company that “provides information, products and services for the global network of consumers and businesses who wish to reduce their environmental impact”. Radiant Core is best known for the visual design of Firefox 2, and has been recognized by Taschen as a leading web design agency. Jay and I have presented together at Web2Expo, FSOSS and Ignite. We’re also co-conspirators in this whole DemoCamp thing.

    zerofootprintsoftwareZerofootprint has been a client of Radiant Core. Radiant Core designed, built and launched the Zerofootprint Calculator Facebook application (add the application). Zerofootprint has a laudable goal to empower people and change their collective footprint.

    Our goal is to mobilize and empower large groups of individuals and organizations worldwide, to reduce their collective carbon and ecological footprint. We do this by harnessing the power of social networking, the Internet and software.

    Why acquire a consulting firm? It’s a great acquisition method, Ron and the Zerofootprint team really managed their risk by engaging Radiant Core to evaluate capabilities, working styles, and the quality of team deliverables. In Radiant Core they get a world-class design firm with strong experience designing and building accessible web and social media applications. Radiant Core also has deep roots in participating and building vibrant, open creative communities. Jay and Mike have been involved with TorCamp, DemoCamp, TransitCamp, FacebookCamp/Facebook Developer Garage and other activities here in Toronto. The Zerofootprint team had the opportunity to evaluate the Radiant Core team and their ability to deliver on the design and development of the Zerofootprint Calculator Facebook application.  Zerofootprint and Radiant Core have worked together and can begin to have informed conversations about cultural compatibility and employee integration based on real experiences.

    No financial details have been released.

    What does this mean for Toronto?

    • One less world-class web design shop.
    • One more awesome software startup, now with world-class web development team!

    It means that Zerofootprint just acquired one of the best web development shops in Canada to be their product team. Running a consulting business is a tough slog. It’s a linear growth business, i.e., you grow revenues by increasing the number of billable hours, increasing the billable rate, or increasing the number of people. It hopefully gives Jay and Mike an exit. It gives Zerofootprint a huge accelerator to continue to build products and services that will help to change the world.

    Interested in what it really means, try calculating your footprint at http://toronto.zerofootprint.net/ and see how Zerofootprint is working with the City of Toronto to create a greener city.

  • StartupCamp Toronto – More Details

    We are VERY excited to announce the line up for StartupCamp Toronto. But first, a big thank you to our sponsors. And not just because we couldn’t have put together this event without them.

    Sponsors
    These folks are in the business of making startups successful, without them a startup’s chances drop significantly… and then we’d have nothing to write about! So get to know these guys and gals at StartupCamp.

    Presenting Companies
    The five presenting companies have been chosen, thanks for all your votes! Drum roll…

    Keynote
    Albert Lai, who has started more companies than you have fingers, will be kicking things off with some thoughts on the state of the Canadian startup scene. If we get a few beers in him, Albert might even give us the inside track on his latest venture.

    Venue
    StartupCampToronto1 will be held at No Regrets, which is located at 42 Mowat Ave in the West end of the city. Parking is free in their lot starting at 6pm, and the King and Queen Street streetcars will get you there from downtown as well.

    More Tickets!
    Now that the details are worked out, we have put the last set of tickets up for grabs. This batch is for Startups and Gurus only. Service Provider sponsorships are also still available.

    There’s an After Party… AND EVERYONE IS INVITED!
    We really hated having to turn people away… so we decided to throw an after party at No Regrets! Everyone is invited. Doors open at 8:30pm. The after party is about more than free flowing beer (there will be plenty)… over a dozen startups will be giving demos all night!

    An incredible, but secret, announcement…
    Woah, have to keep a lid on this one. We have a huge new announcement to make at StartupCampToronto, you won’t want to miss this. Whether you just have an idea, or have been slaving away at your startup for years, something is about to happen in Canada that you want to know about.

  • mesheast.com – East Coast Startup Blog

    picture-2.pngMeshEast is the latest entrant on to the Canadian Startup blog scene. I was excited to get an email from Lisa Rousseau, who is also working on her own startup, to see that the east coast would finally have a local startup blog. Lisa is going to have some work to do in finding and profiling those elusive east-coast startups, but my guess is that she will find more than enough to get started in her home province of New Brunswick.

    So please, head over to MeshEast and subscribe. We have been covering some of the bigger happenings on the east coast, but there are always a lot of things we just can’t cover. We are working on our own profile of what is going on in Atlantic Canada, and so far I have been excited about what I have seen.

    We have been trying to do as much as we can to encourage local blogs that will cover smaller regions in more detail. Montreal is the luckiest with MontrealTechWatch, which is run by Heri (who might be the hardest working blogger in Canada these days), and Ottawa has StartupOttawa, which is really starting to pick up steam. There are some gaps to fill, so if you are passionate about startups then it is time to get off your butt and step up to the place. I can think of dozens of local blogs I would love to see: Waterloo, Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria, and the Prairies all come to mind as the biggest gaps out there.

    So get started, and get in touch. We want to help!

  • Do you know a great wordpress designer?

    Startupnorth needs a better look. The current design, a hacked version of a free template, is pretty darn ugly. A lot of people comment on how ugly it is, so we figure it’s time for a change.

    So, please contact us with any suggestions or offers (if you are the great designer that you know!).

  • Tonight is the night – Dragon's Den Season 2 – Episode #1

    drag_rh.gifIf you have been wondering what it is like to be breathed on by a hot, fiery, and scaly creature, you can tune in tonight to see the ulta-hyped Dragon’s Den Season 2 on CBC.

    This season, like the last, will see Sean Wise manning the blogosphere with all sorts of interesting extras. Without a doubt, I think they need to make Sean the TV host. I suspect that the reason he isn’t the host is a silly one, but I won’t speculate here.

    We have made our opinions about the Dragon’s Den known before, so we don’t need to rehash those.

    Tune in and feel free to comment back here on what you think. I’d love to hear some opinions.

  • Angel Investing – New Series

    I’d like to welcome Craig Hayashi, of Maple Leaf Angels, to StartupNorth. The following post is the first article of a new StartupNorth series on angel financing Craig will be writing. We’re excited to have Craig on board and look forward to learning from his experiences as a Canadian angel investor. — Jonas

    Angel InvestorAngel financing is an important part of a startup’s lifecycle, I’d like to help as much as I can to demystify the process. I am one of the founders of the Maple Leaf Angels one of the main organized angel groups in the Toronto area. As such, most of my articles will be written from the viewpoint of securing funding through an angel group.

    So what is an angel group? Basically it is an organization that has angel investors as members and provides the infrastructure to intake companies looking for funding, screen them, and provide them a forum to pitch to the members of the group. The benefit to companies looking for funding is that it provides a defined place & process by which to submit a funding application that can reach many angel investors. The benefit to angel investors is that it provides a forum to see quality deals and pool together investor’s capital for deals. From a funding standpoint, the important thing to remember is that the group only exists to support the investment. At the end of the day, each individual angel investor is deciding if they want to invest and they individually write a cheque for how much they want to invest.

    To help frame the overview with some actual figures, here are some statistics from the Angel Capital Association. The Angel Capital Association is an alliance of angel groups in North America and periodically surveys the groups to understand investment trends.

    Average # of members in an angel group: 44

    Average # of investments per year: 7

    Average size of each investment: $241,000 USD

    Average investment size per angel: $30,000 USD

    The statistics above are fairly representative of the angel groups I have been involved with in Toronto. Which basically means that for a given financing deal, you can expect to be able to raise a few hundred thousand dollars spread across a dozen or so investors.

    In future articles, I plan to cover various aspects of the angel financing process such as what makes a good investor presentation, what angel investors look for in making a financing decision, term sheets, valuation, etc. I welcome suggestions of topics you would like to hear about and if you have any questions in general about angel financing, feel free to contact me: craig <at> mapleleafangels.com

  • What happens when it all goes wrong?

    I have been meeting with a decent number of startups in and around Toronto lately. I have been doing this for a few reasons. The most obvious is that I want to find interesting startups to profile here on StartupNorth, I want to encourage people to keep at it, and more selfishly, I find startups, whether they are my own or someone else’s, fascinating.

    When I came across this chronicle of the ArsDigita story, I was fascinated. Philip Greenspun went through it all. An incredible ramp up of his business, strong response from customers and a solid development team that was producing really great products.

    If you remember Ars back then, they were a big deal. The Ars Community System was the top notch social media platform of it’s day, and a lot of companies are just now starting to replicate it, including a few Candian startups. (Whether or not they know they are simply replicating Ars is another story).

    You will have to read the story for yourself. Take what lessons you can from it, it is the story of what happens when investors don’t play nicely. ArsDigita was a strong company, profitable and reasonably well run, but it only took a few petty VCs to tank the whole thing.

    If that can happen to Ars, what could happen to your little startup if you took money from the wrong source?

    Read On »

  • Break time is over. What are you planning for the fall?

    Ok. So the summer has been nice. Drinks with friends, long evenings with few worries and beautiful places to see.

    The bad news is: that is all over. September is rumbling towards us and if you have been slacking a little on your startups ideas, it’s time to get a plan ready.

    You’ve probably promised yourself that you will get out to more events, you’ve also probably committed to waste less time with that Xbox or whatever it is that is distracting you, and you most likely have 3 or 4 decent ideas swimming around in your head.

    How are you going to change from relaxing to action?

    Don’t promise, DO
    Instead of waiting until September to start getting back into the work groove, start now. The extra week might not seem like much, but you’ll prove to yourself that you have the personal control to get busy when you need to, and the last week of August is a slow one for everyone else, so you will have less distractions while you work.

    Start talking now
    Don’t just promise yourself that you will get out to more *camp and other events “this fall”. Start calling people who you think can help and take them for a beer or lunch NOW. If they aren’t on vacation, chances are that they aren’t doing much at work either. You’ll get their full attention and, hopefully, you’ll have a solid relationship before the September rush.

    Set goals
    Set some decent personal goals that you want to achieve in the next year. September is the Entrepreneur’s New Year. At least it always has been for me. Do you want to be selling a product this time next year? Have funding? A lot of people will tell you that goals set a year in advance are useless, but they are a compliment to your more immediate goals, and when you hit them, they are even sweeter.

    Focus on one idea
    It is torture walking around with a couple of decent or good ideas in your head, and when they both start to become excellent ideas, then you are screwed. Pick one early and stick with it. The other ideas will have to be “might have been”‘s for the rest of your life, or the next year at least.

    Keep your calendar open in November
    Because we are planning an extra cool event. StartupCongress. End of November, best entrepreneurs in the country, best money people and advisors in the country, all in one place. Open format and focused on giving your startup a leg-up. More info to come.

  • Blognation Canada is here

    I had heard rumors it was coming, and now it’s here, Tris Hussey is now writing Blognation Canada for the London, UK based Blognation conglomorate.

    All the new national and regional blogs that are popping up in Canada are, we think, reflective of how quickly the Canadian tech scene is gaining pace, and there are going to be some exciting announcements really soon as well.

    Let’s hope that as the US Economy starts to grind to a halt, we can pick up the slack here.