StartupNorth

Category: Ontario

  • Founders & Funders – Feb 15, 2010

    founders and funders Logo It’s time to for another Founders & Funders event in Toronto. I can’t believe it’s been 18 months since the last event in June 2008. The next event is scheduled for Februrary 15, 2010 in downtown Toronto. We’re looknig for a few good startups and a few good investors. We’ll be sending out invitations early in the new year, but we want to start with an open call for participation.

    What is Founders & Funders?

    Founders & Funders is an invitation only social event for people that start high potential growth companies and the people that fund them. This means entrepreneurs. This means angel investors. This means venture capitalists. This means government funders. It is a curated dinner party. The idea is to get stuck at a table with others interested in emerging technology, growth companies. Have meaningful conversations beyond the usual conference hallway chatter or pitch sessions. The goal is to create stronger, more relevant connections between individuals in this community.

    Who should attend?

    Founders of high potential growth companies. This means companies that are at varying stages of corporate development, ranging from the very new to the more established. Digital media. Internet. Software applications. Enterprise applications. Infrastructure. Data centre automation. Mobile. Clean tech. Yes, you should consider attending. However, you should be looking to raise capital in near future.

    Funders of high potential growth companies. Venture capitalists in Ontario, Quebec, New York, Boston, California, and around the globe. There are attendees that are actively seeking capital, with outstanding track records and attractive valuations. Angel investors, definitely. You’re the backbone of Canadian deal. We’re reaching out separately to National Angel Capital Organization and to Maple Leaf Angels to invite investors (by active I mean that you’ve written an investment cheque in the past 18 months).

    How can I participate?

    We’re asking everyone interested in participating complete an application. The goal is to gather enough details that we can share with others, i.e., founders details will be compiled and shared with investors, investor details will be shared with founders. (Yes, I know that form doesn’t specify this use of the data, each invited attendee will be asked this question and given the opportunity to revise their details. If we don’t invite you, the information will be purged after the event).

  • Microsoft acquires Opalis

    OpalisLogo Microsoft has acquired Mississauga-based Opalis. Details are available on the System Center blog and on TechNet. Rick Segal provides a summary of the investor involved, Peter Carrescia at VenGrowth. VenGrowth had invested $3.6M in March 2004 and had participated in an $8.5M round in November 2005 with Sierra Ventures & BDC. It’s a story for Canadian venture capital and a great story for entrepreneurs.

    It also demonstrates some of the main reasons companies like Microsoft make acquisitions: shared customers. There is nothing greater than shared customers to drive a potential acquisition. When a product offering fills a gap in a companies product line and there are shared customers, it becomes a much stronger conversation about acquisition.

    “Opalis has over 300 satisfied customers today, including many of the largest IT Managed Service Providers, demanding customers who deliver IT as a business and expect solutions that deliver results for their customers…Combined with Opalis, System Center will be able to interoperate with all of those legacy tools so customers can take a ‘land and migrate’ approach with Microsoft versus a ‘rip and replace’ approach as they build out their next generation virtualized data centers” – Todd DeLaughter

    Here’s hoping that the Opalis team will stay in Mississauga, however, Microsoft tends to like to have the talent in Redmond. Congratulations Opalis, VenGrowth and BDC on a win.

  • C'mon Meat, throw me that weak-ass shit!

    Crash Davis: Relax, all right? Don’t try to strike everybody out. Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they’re fascist. Throw some ground balls – it’s more democratic.
    Ebby Calvin LaLoosh: [to himself] What’s this guy know about pitching? If he’s so good how come he’s been in the minors for the last ten years?

    I guess this makes me Crash Davis, ten years in the minors, makes me wonder when my Waterworld is coming (so please make sure you take any feedback with the appropriate sense of pending doom).

    “Open challenge to local startups to “pitch” for a meeting in a 140 characters or less in the comments (more realistically less than 420 characters – basically 3 tweets).”

    In response to my Pitching Fastballs post on StartupNorth (reblogged), Trevor and Karim from Big Time Design have answered my open challenge, along with a bunch of others in the comments. Along with Scott Annan and Tim Harris.

    Big Time Radar

    radar

    big time Radar is: Discreet, targeted messaging; customers ask for it & you deliver via Live Messenger, Twitter, SMS, email & Facebook from one interface.

    Big time’s management team consists of three guys from marketing, design and development backgrounds.  Radar’s market opportunity is massive for anyone in the marketplace looking to use social media to sell, communicate and connect with their customers.  Initially, we plan to focus on four verticals: retail, events, media and real estate.  Our pricing model is segmented by number of users and selected features. We are currently in the beta phase (with very positive initial results) and are bootstrapping rather than looking for funding as our overhead cost is negligible. 

    Commentary/Feedback

    This is a great approach to layered information. The piece that is missing for me is the separation between Big Time Design and Big Time Radar. I’m assuming Radar is a product offering of Big Time Design. That coupled with I’m curious at the benefit of the solution, i.e., it sounds like a multi-channel replacement for MailChip or Constant Contact, i.e., email marketing that uses social media for notification beyond just email. A little more clarity about how it fits with respect to these other offerings might be helpful.

    Network Hippo

    network_hippo

    Network Hippo is a smart address book for startups and professionals. It combines and scrubs contact information from dozens of sources, finds more info about them on the web and social networks, plugins into your email, and alerts you when – and who – you should contact. It’s a smarter, personal, social CRM. We’ll replace Highrise completely & Salesforce’s smallest customers.

    Commentary/Feedback

    I also like the one provided on Network Hippo’s home page , “Network Hippo is a powerful and unique network relationship application that puts your professional network to work. We help professionals and small businesses build their network, identify their most valuable contacts, remind them when somebody needs a call, and track deals for their business.” It’s very clear who the product is for, what the product does, and who are the competitors. I would like a little more detail on the differentiator, i.e., what makes Network Hippo special?

    Star Return

    Star-Return-Logo

    Star Return links out door media to rich media content on handheld apps via web services, while providing advertisers with solid analytics to evaluate effectiveness and viral affects of their campaigns.

    Commentary/Feedback

    I’m still not sure how Star Return links outdoor media to rich media content (I’m assuming that this is online content). I still don’t actually know what Star Return does. Jumping on the Interwebs, I find “We are Star Return. We allow you to download information to your mobile device, related to products, places, people and businesses.” and “Star Return puts a new twist on information access. Users – anytime, anywhere can now access information on restaurants, stores, products, sporting events, concerts, bands, real-estate and much much more.” My guess is that it’s bit.ly for billboards?

  • We have maple syrup and beer

    I was reading Anil Dash’s New York City is the Future of the Web post over the weekend, and there is a great list of startups (and funders) based in NYC. The list is pretty impressive starting with the money folks including Union Square Ventures and Fred Wilson to Founders Collective and Chris Dixon. The startups Foursquare, Hunch, Etsy, Kickstarter, and 20×200. I was starting to think that the grass might be greener in NYC. But I was reminded of the great things going on in Canada when I was redirected to the 2009 Canadian New Media Awards finalists.

    cnma-finalists-announced

    There is a great list of companies that are finalists for the CNMA. You can round this list out with the great list of companies announced as part of the CIX Top 20.  There are a lot of great Canadian startups that continue to execute, find customers, and raise their profiles internationally.

    These companies show the breadth of solution and corporate development of the Canadian startups. The startups are spread across the country, but entrepreneurs in Canada are building great things. Feeling good about the state of startups, hoping that Canadian funding scene continues to evolve, and that these companies continue to have the opportunities to change the world.

  • VeloCity Start-up Day – Dec 1, 2009

    velocity

    We’ve written about the awesomesauce that is VeloCity in the past, and about the Project Exhibition. They have renamed the event Start-up Day. Huge improvement. I’m hoping that the quality of the projects and demos continues to grow. Velocity offers students at Waterloo an opportunity to really see entrepreneurship as a potential career path. Like the cooperative education program, VeloCity is leading here. This is a great opportunity to see the progress of the current crop.

    Velocity Start-up Day is a great opportunity to:

    • Connect with VeloCity students displaying current business projects
    • Interact with other UW entrepreneurial students representing their projects at our exhibition
    • Inform students about your company/services
    • Talk to students who may be interested in working for your organization

    Startups should be heading for the day to find talent. Funders should be heading to see if there are any opportunities. I’ll be heading there to continue to support my alma mater and this program. 

    Details

    What: VeloCity Start-up Day
    When:Tuesday, December 1, 2009 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM
    Where:Student Life Centre
    200 University Ave West
    Waterloo, ON   Canada

  • The Communitech Hub

    Communitech is getting $26.4m from the Ontario Government towards the creation of The Communitech Hub: Digital Media & Mobile Accelerator.

    “Located in Waterloo Region and serving technology companies provincewide, The Hub will help hardware and software entrepreneurs bring new tools, technologies and applications to market. The Hub will focus on commercialization, business development, access to financing and connecting clients with other digital media hubs across Ontario and Canada.”

    It looks like it is a physical space with resources to help entrepreneurs.

    “The Hub [is] a new centre that will help emerging digital media companies grow and succeed in the global market. In particular, The Hub will look beyond the entertainment sector to focus on companies creating hardware and software for industries, including advanced manufacturing, healthcare and finance.”

    It’s great news for Waterloo Region. Further support of a great organization with Communitech as a leader. Additional attention and awareness to a growing tech sector with companies like OpenText and RIM. And additional real estate development and construction jobs.

    What I am curious about is the relationship of the Accelerator Centre to The Hub? And what is the relationship to nGen? to MaRS? to RIC Centre? to OCRI? to Innovation Synergy Centre? Ontario Centres for Excellence? Is there a plan for where each of these pieces fit together? How about where these programs fit relative to local Economic Development Corporations? Is this really about creating an innovation and entrepreneurship based economy? Or is it about investing in third-party, arms length, pseudo-government agencies without looking like big government?

    So it’s a mixed bag. This announcement continues to show technology entrepreneurship is a focus of the Ontario Government’s plan to help seed a new economy by bring new companies to market. But there seems to be a focus on real estate as the first step in enablement. Any thoughts?

  • Interview with John Green of Savvica

    jumbotests I had an opportunity to catch up recently with John Green, cofounder of Savvica, and over an early morning breakfast got schooled on what’s new at LearnHub and JumboTests.

    StartupNorth: What is JumboTests.com? What’s the relationship to LearnHub.com?

    John Green: JumboTests is an extraction of core test preparation technology and content from LearnHub, and factored for a different audience and user acquisition model. Both sites are run by the same content, engineering, and community management teams here at Savvica Inc.

    SN: So what is the change in target audience with JumboTests?

    JG: LearnHub, although useful to English speakers everywhere, is targeted at the Indian student market. More than half of Savvica’s employees are in fact in our marketing team, which is based in Delhi, India.

    JumboTests, on the other hand, is not focused on any particularly geography; it is equally useful to anyone studying for the standardized tests covered on the site (including GMAT, GRE, SAT, TOEFL, and others). This makes JumboTests especially relevant in the US and other Western countries which have the majority of the test takers every year.

    SN: How are the user acquisition models different?

    JG: Visitors to LearnHub mostly come through search engines. LearnHub has several hundred thousand pages indexed by Google and other search engines, and we rank at the top for hundreds of popular search terms. The site has a mix of user generated content and content made by our expert staff. For instance, LearnHub has the world’s largest free GMAT question bank, which has thousands of questions developed by us and our community. It is very popular.

    Search engine traffic is less of a factor for JumboTests. Instead we are growing through strategic partnerships. Sites with existing, large, and relevant user bases (such as job sites, education sites, or portals) essentially embed JumboTests into their site using our partner platform. Our partners get hundreds of high quality practice tests that drive engagement, page views, and a split of the revenue.

    Since the JumboTests launch 3 months ago, we have entered into long term relationships with 3 partners, all top in their categories: TalentEgg, India.com, and The Globe & Mail. All of these integrations are already deployed and online.

    SN: So what’s next?

    JG: We feel both properties have a bright future. Between the 2 sites, we help over 350,000 students a month with test prep, university applications, and career advice. That’s a lot, but there are many more students that aren’t on our sites but should be.

    LearnHub is the largest education website in India, excluding reference sites like Wikipedia. But India has a long way to go in terms of Internet penetration. It has about 2x the Internet users as Canada, but it also has over 1 billion people. The number of Internet users in India doubled last year to 50-60 million. We are pegging our growth to outpace the Indian Internet penetration rate over the next 5 years.

    JumboTests is tackling a more mature market. That is why we are growing it primarily through partnerships. There are a lot of established online channels whose audiences would benefit from our unique content and delivery technology.

  • Impact National Conference & Impact Ventures

    Impact Entrepreneurship GroupImpact_blog_redlogo started life as a student group designed to help promote entrepreneurship as a career path. It was started by Kunal Gupta, now the founder & CEO of Polar Mobile. It started as a conference for students, “a one-day event in Kitchener, Ontario attracting 150 delegates”. It is still primarily a conference/event machine for student entrepreneurs. However, with the creation of Impact Consulting and now Impact Ventures (see below) this is changing very quickly.

    The next INC_logoImpact National Conference is happening November 20-21, 2009 at the Westin Harbour Castle on Queens Quay in Toronto. The conference features some interesting speakers including some familiar faces: Andy Nulman, Sunjay Nath, Ali Asaria, Jordan Banks, Saul Colt, Austin Hill, Mike McDerment and others. It looks to be a great conference with a great list of speakers in Toronto.

     

    What is most interesting to me is the announcement of the Impact 2010 Programs, including Impact Ventures.

    Many talented youth with innovative ideas steer away from an entrepreneurial path due to the numerous challenges, including funding and guidance, which they inevitably face; Impact Ventures was created to remove these obstacles. Impact Ventures strives to provide youth entrepreneurs with the seed funding, advisory services, workspace tools, and strategic resources they need at the crucial idea stage to create a successful business. Based on the successful Y Combinator model used in Silicon Valley to bring the next generation of ideas to life, Impact Ventures will help propel new startups to achieve their business objectives.

    The selection process consists of an application form and an interview; there is no business plan required. During the pilot, three to four ventures showing the most opportunity for growth and long term sustainability will be chosen for the first batch. This three-month program will bring these budding entrepreneurs to Waterloo, the technology hub of Canada, to present them with all the components each entrepreneur needs to help build their venture.

    Components for each selected Venture:

    • $15,000 in seed funding for an average of 6% stake in the company
    • Mentors available for hands-on help as well as advise
    • Advisory services including Legal, Accounting, Banking and more
    • Office Space in Waterloo to create an environment of collaboration
    • Themed weeks where experts related to starting a business will provide their insights and advice
    • Consultants to help a new company fill gaps in its initial organization

    Impact Ventures is dedicated to the implementation of the entrepreneurial spirit amongst Canadian youth and values the independence of each entrepreneur. We are not interested in controlling the direction of the company as we trust in the entrepreneurs to make the best decision for their company. We believe in a non-regimented and friendly atmosphere where you are allowed to develop your startup with little interference, numerous resources and advice when you need it. Impact Ventures is set to revolutionize the startup industry by giving entrepreneurs an excellent spring board that will launch them to their success.

    I’ve been talking with members of team creating Impact Ventures including Taimur Mohammad and Ray Cao since my post "Incubators, accelerators and ignition” back in April 2009. It looks like the Impact team has taken up the challenge and will be using their network of advisors, past members to help guide and mentor new companies. It also looks like they’ll be providing funding and consulting services to help kick start these early ventures.  There is a Waterloo residency requirement, which potential a detractor for many students actually enables students in the VeloCity program a formalized incubation phase beyond their residence. For many non-University of Waterloo students this provides students access to the ridiculous support network available in Waterloo (I’m looking at you TechCapital and Communitech and BarCampWaterloo). This is something that is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

  • StartupDrinks – Oct 28, 2009

    startupdrinks1[1]It’s time again!

    " Strong communities are better than weak governments." – Legatum Prosperity Index

    Announcing the arrival of Startup Drinks 4! We’re continuing to keep the spirit of the startup community alive, one pint at a time on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 to be held at Finn McCools, 70 The Esplanade, Toronto, ON M5E1R2.

    It’s a simple concept: a grassroots effort to make sure startup folks get in touch and stay in touch.

    Toronto

    Montreal

    • Wednesday, October 28, 2009 starts at 5:30pm
    • Brutopia, 1215 Crescent St [map]

    Ottawa

    Waterloo

    Remember, it’s about hanging out with other entrepreneurs and startups. Come out, be social and earn some social capital.

  • Uken Games – Caution: highly addictive games

    This is part of a series on Extreme University and the first group of graduates from the Summer 2009 program (part 1: Assetize).

    superheroesalliance Uken Games is a social game developer based in Toronto. They build “highly addictive” social games on large social platforms including Facebook, Myspace, and iPhone. Their first game, Superheroes Alliance, has 50K active monthly users.

    Founders

    Founded by Mark Lampert and Chris Ye (Facebook). They are young developers and business school grads. Mark was one of the developers behind Twisted Trick-or-Treating and Twisted Gifts that are gifting applications that ran promotional campaigns for Nestle through the Halloween and Christmas holiday seasons where users could gift one another mini Kit Kats or a box of Turtles.

    Market

    “In 2009, an estimated $400 million to $600 million will be spent on virtual goods in the United States, and $5.5 billion globally, according to Brian Balfour, founder of Viximo. U.S. virtual goods spending was likely less than half that in 2008, and between $25 million and $50 million in 2007, Balfour said.” – San Francisco Business Times

    The opportunity behind social games and virtual goods is clear and doubling each year. “Mochi Media co-founder Jameson Hsu, reports that the company’s new virtual goods are earning at 10 to 20 times the rate of advertising” as reported by Virtual World News.

    Competition

    The competition in the social gaming space is high but given the extremely high rate of growth in the industry and the number of users who are just beginning to play games on social networks, competition is less of a factor. Because the games are generally free to play, users often play numerous games at a time, which expands the size of the entire market. The top competitors include Zynga, Playdom, Playfish, Serious Business, Hive7, and LOLapps.

    Zynga, Playdom, and Playfish are each very large, having user bases in the tens of millions across numerous games. Even so, they are all growing at tremendous rates. Zynga is rumoured to generate $200M in revenue by the end of the year according to a recent Inside Facebook article.

    Product

    Their first game, Superheroes Alliance, has 50K monthly active users on Facebook. In the game, users create a Superhero alter ego to complete missions, customize their super powers, hire sidekicks, and start rivalries with other superheroes. It’s free to play but for those users who want that slight edge and great customizability, they can purchase compelling virtual items (through a virtual currency) in the form of rare sidekicks/vehicles, special powerups, and bonuses.

    Business Model

    They generate 100% of their revenues through virtual good sales without any reliance on advertising. 80% those virtual good sales are direct, meaning customers pay with their credit cards or PayPal accounts. The remaining 20% comes in the form of CPA (cost-per-action) offers such as filling out a survey or signing up for a service like Netflix.

    Barriers to Entry

    Uken Games is an execution play. They have built a successful gaming platform that leverages key content concepts (superheroes) and social gaming and reputation. The ability to attract, engage and entertain users is core to their business.

    • Intellectual property
      There is nothing that indicates that there is any intellectual property protection for Uken Games. Intellectual property protections are not required to build a successful execution company. The uniqueness of the gaming platform and the ability to quickly adapt the platform for new markets will help Uken Games adjust course and launch new games rapidly.
    • Customer loyalty
      A large 50k monthly audience of players is great. Metrics around user signup, retention, attention and engagement would be very interesting to see. It would also be interesting to understand the conversion rates for users sharing with friends. The “addictive nature” of these games puts customer loyalty at the centre of the design and measures of Uken Games.
    • Network effect
      It’s a social game where you play your friends. Network effect is based on enjoyment and value to include new friends in the interaction. It is key to the success of Uken Games as a platform. SuperheroesAlliance is a great first game, the question of moving existing users to new games and continuing to attract new users will leverage the network effects of social media.
    • Sunk costs
      Traditional games are expensive to build. However, Uken Games has built a skinnable version game engine that has abstracted the interactions between users and allows them to build new games using new metaphors. It will be interesting to see how long the current platform remains relevant with users.
    • Research and development
      Uken Games currently has new games in development, which they plan to launch by early October. They are also working to support other platforms including Myspace and iPhone so that their games can be accessed through more channels. Leveraging existing social networks along with mobility platforms offers an interesting method for longer engagement and new social interactions.

    Summary

    The Uken Games team report that “Superheroes has already officially been banned from 3 offices during work hours due to its highly addictive nature”. As Uken launches more titles, the founders hope to see that number go up. It will be interesting to see more game titles on more platforms.