StartupNorth

Category: News

  • communitynorth.ca – Welcome to the family

    Our CEO and mascot, David Crow, is going live today with CommunityNorth.ca, the latest addition to our little family of blogs alongside Wirelessnorth. David will be profiling what is working, and what isn’t, in Canada’s communities both online and off.

    CommunityNorth is a project to profile Canadian communities and the best examples of community marketing, social capital, building meaningful relationships and evangelism practices.

    File PhotoFor all of the people out there who call themselves “Community Marketers”, “Social Media Consultants” and everything else, David is the one guy who has really done it in Canada. There simply aren’t any other people who have built sustainable online/offline hybrid communities the way he has managed to do.

    So, here is your chance to learn from the best. I know I took notes from David for years and I owe him credit for equipping me to get StartupNorth off the ground.

    Oh, and apologies for how ugly all these blogs are. We are working on that.

  • 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.

  • Founders and Funders Montreal – May 14th 2008

    The second Founders and Funders Dinner has been announced for Montreal. Tickets are $100

    This dinner, like the last one and the Toronto event is still by invitation only, but some changes have been made to make sure that everyone has a chance to participate.

    To help expand the community of people we can be invited, we are opening up a registration system for invites allowing anyone who is a founder, angel investor or VC investor to register for an invitation.

    We are limited to 100 seats for the dinner. The fee for the dinner will be $100 which will include drinks and dinner. This is a private networking event and we select the audience to ensure a quality group of attendees have a chance to network together.

    Given the interest we received after the first event and the fact that we won?t be able to invite everyone who has expressed interest to the dinner. As a result we are also going to be hosting an after dinner open cocktail networking (A nice roof top terrace party). The networking event will cost $20 and include two drink tickets.

    Announcements for Toronto and Vancouver dates will be made very soon.

  • 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!

  • 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.

  • Novell acquires PlateSpin for $205M

    Novel PlateSpin LogoPlateSpin, based in Toronto, has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Novell for $205M. The company, which makes a suite of solutions for the server virtualization market, was founded (for the second time) in 2003. You see, PlateSpin is a restart.

    PlateSpin1 was founded in 2000, raised $1.9M in 2002, and closed up shop in 2003. PlateSpin2 was restarted with new management in 2003, raised $3.5M from Toronto venture funds Covington Capital, Castle Hill Ventures, Skylon Capital, and Four Quarters, and another $7M in 2005 from Insight Venture Partners of New York.

    Word is that PlateSpin2 had trailing revenue of $20M, and that Citrix, Microsoft, and Unisys were all vying for the prize. Congrats to PlateSpin and its backers on the Novell acquisition. We’re chalking this up as a win. While it doesn’t put PlateSpin on the road to VMware glory ($22B, P/S 16.84) it is a solid exit for all involved… especially the funds. I am guessing they cut a nice slice of pie as part of the restart.

  • IOU Central – Canada gets its first Peer to Peer Lending Company

    iou_logo.jpgIOU Central, a Montreal based startup, is launching today. They have staked their claim as Canada’s first Peer to Peer lending company. We covered the funding announcement of Toronto based CommunityLend back in December.

    Peer-To-Peer lending has been maturing quickly as a concept on the heels of successful sites like Zopa and Prosper, but Canada has so far had no such providers. Peer to Peer lending is a concept that takes a large group of lenders who are willing to lend out smaller amounts of cash and connects them with borrowers who need access to cash at a rate that is below the standard credit card rates, but they are generally willing to pay a higher rate than if they had to go to a bank. A lender can be anyone with a bit of extra cash that they would like to get decent returns on.

    iouscreen.pngFrom a borrower’s perspective, IOU Central operates much like any other lender, in that a borrower’s initial “rating” is based primarily on their credit score. You can however supplement that score by uploading a number of other documents to do things like prove your income, itemize your monthly expenditures and other things that can bump up your overall score.

    IOU Central groups borrowers into 5 tiers: A, B, C, R, and HR. Borrowers in each tier pay IOU Central a service fee on top of the loan of 1%, 1.5%, 2%, 2.5%, and 3% respectively. Service fees varies because IOU Central expects to have to spend more to recruit lenders interested in higher risk borrowers and expect to face higher operating costs servicing loans to higher risk borrowers.

    IOU Central charges Lenders a Lending Fee, which works out to about 0.5% annualized, calculated based on the amount of outstanding loans you have remaining each month.

    The company was conceived over a year ago and their site has been in development for just under a year. There are currently 7 full time employees and they have raised a round of funding which includes Angels and VCs, but they did not disclose the amount of funding.

    I asked Sam Bendavid, VP of Business Development for IOU Central, what sort of regulatory or legal issues they encountered running up to launch and he indicated that things were quite smooth. IOU Central is registered in Quebec as a lender and they worked closely with their law firm in developing their set of Legal Agreements.

    IOU Central will be focusing most of their initial marketing on potential lenders. This is a smart move as lenders will be far more scarce than borrowers. Perhaps the days of getting a loan from Uncle Vinnie are over, and Canada now has a safe, regulated, and legal place to secure peer to peer loans.

    Update: The Star provided some further coverage a few days later.

  • 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.