StartupNorth

Category: Ontario

  • Workbrain Children

    Joey deVilla, Austin Hill, and I (here & here) have written about one of the best indicators of a strong startup community is the number of repeat entrepreneurs and the number of successful follow on/spinout companies. It’s the “Fairchildren” principle that is one of the many complex factors attributed to the rise of Silicon Valley.

    Workbrain agreed to be acquired back in April 2007 for $227M. This was one of the largest software acquisitions in recent history in Toronto, Platespin’s $205M acquisition by Novell being the other. It has been 2 years since the the announcement, and it appears that many of the Workbrain’s ex-founders and senior executives are starting to turn up running the next generation of Toronto startups poised for massive success.

    • dayforce 
      Dayforce is an enterprise solution that enables companes to integrate performance with planning, scheduling and management of their workforce. The company’s management team is a mix of ex-Workbrain leadership (David Ossip, Paul Sandusky, Ozzie Goldschmied, Warren Perlman) and new blood (Bob Brooks & John Orr [Note: Andrew Giblon comments John Orr was previously the VP Industry/Retails Solutions at Workbrain]). The company is building a world-class enterprise application. Dayforce launched on April 16, 2009, roughly 2 years after the Workbrain acquisition. There’s no data about the funding, but one would guess that David Ossip is able to bootstrap.
    • rypple 
      Rypple is a bottom up solution to collaborative performance management. It is a collaborative tool that enables employees and managers to request and give near real-time feedback about their performance. The team is also a mix of ex-Workbrain founders (Daniel Debow, David Stein, Tihomir Bajic, David Priemer) and new talent (George Babu, Ryan Dewsbury, Jay Goldman, and others). Rypple is funded by Peter Theil, EdgeStone Capital, Roger Martin, Seymour Schulich, and others. That’s some heavy valley hitters and some of Canada’s most respected busines individuals.

    These are 2 very prominent Toronto-based startups that are poised to knock it out of the park (again). And it provides further proof, that one of the best training grounds for young entrepreneurs is to work in successful companies. By the way, both Dayforce and Rypple are hiring.

    Are there other Workbrain children?

  • Up-Start Competition 2009

    Update from Tony Redpath at MaRS:

    “An important correction – the actual competition runs from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM on the 29th, with the class party starting at 5:00 PM and running to 7:00 PM. (12 pitches x 15 minutes = 3 hours, hence the 2 – 5). Anyone can attend to watch the pitches – but they will have to sign an NDA at the door since many entrants will have to disclose confidential ideas in order to make their pitch. The party is wide open however …and the winner of the competition will be announced, a large cheque handed out etc. I will have non-confidential summaries of each pitch available for interested parties, and they can buttonhole any team that interests them. We’ve got a great crop this year.”

    CIBC_Ent101-250px The MaRS Entrepreneurship 101 is coming to a close for the 2009 season. The season ending wrap party, aka Up-Start Competition, is happening on April 29, 2009 from 5:00-7:00pm at MaRS. Twelve (12) companies will be pitching a 10 minute presentation followed by 5 minutes of questions to a panel of three judges. Unfortunately, the judges are not currently listed on the site. However, a quick assumption is that it is probably someone from MaRS Venture Group (Tony Redpath or Peter Evans), a successful past entrepreneur and a local venture investment professional.

    The twelve entrants selected from the executive summary stage each give a 10-minute presentation, with a further five minutes for questions, to a panel of three judges on a day in late April (date to be confirmed). Presentations will be made under cover of a non-disclosure agreement that all audience members will be required to sign. The judges will pick the winner on that day and the first prize of $10K will be awarded. (Note that the prize will be paid out against an approved expenditure program that advances the business upon which the pitch was based.)

    All of the presentations will be judged against the following criteria:

    • Has the summary/presentation clearly articulated the value proposition?
    • Has the summary/presentation demonstrated competitive differentiation/intellectual capital?
    • Has the summary/presentation demonstrated a business model that makes money?
    • Has the summary/presentation demonstrated market awareness?
    • How effective was the overall presentation?
    • Would you invest?

    Should be a great night of pitches from the Entrepreneurship 101 class. See you there.

    What: Up-Start Competition 2009
    The Up-Start Competition is a business pitch competition open to participants enrolled in CIBC Presents Entrepreneurship 101. Individuals, or teams of individuals, have to give a ten minute presentation on an idea for a technology based business that they wish to implement (or, if appropriate, for a business that they have already started). They are expected to apply the concepts that they have learned from the course to their business idea, and to make a compelling case that this will lead to a very successful business.
    When: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM
    Where: MaRS

    101 College St
    Toronto, ON   Canada

  • ParkVu launch iTunes to Blackberry app

    i2b - iTunes Library on your BlackBerry Jeff Fedor and Terry Goertz of ParkVu launched i2b service today. The service allows BlackBerry Bold, Curve and Storm users to remotely retrieve their music their iTunes libraries.

    i2b makes some assumptions about user behaviour that allows the application to automatically sync users music to their BlackBerry. The i2b service is limited to 1Gb or 100 files. This requires users (and the applications’ designers) to make a decision about which music to sync by default. The i2b application makes some initial assumptions that Favorite Playlists, 25 most played tracks, and most recent iTunes library additions are the files that should be sync’d out of the box. It’s a great starting point for users and can be configured by users after the fact.

    The service creates a sync’d intermediate store of up to 1Gb or 100 songs in the cloud allowing users to access the sync’d files on their BlackBerry devices.

    Songs on their home computer can be retrieved even when it’s off. Up to 100 tracks (1GB maximum) from the i2b user’s iTunes library will be replicated to the Internet cloud, making them available from their BlackBerry even when their desktop or laptop is turned off. When their computer is on and connected to the Internet, all of their iTunes playlists are available on demand to their BlackBerry. Users can easily set i2b not to receive updates in areas where extra roaming charges would apply. i2b combines a BlackBerry application with a small application for the user’s home computer that works in the background with iTunes to allow users to replicate their playlists on their BlackBerry. i2b maintains any DRM restrictions and preserves the integrity of the user’s iTunes library.

    Hopefully the ParkVu team is able to quickly get i2b into the BlackBerry App World to enable broader distribution for their $2.99/month service. It would be fantastic to see them get similar exposure and distribution as Viigo in the BlackBerry App World’s Featured section.

  • MeshU/StartupNorth party – April 6 2009

    We are slowly emerging from our cave, and finally setting a date. On April 6th, MeshU, the startup and developer conference that runs the day before the Mesh Conference, will be having a social. It is a chance to hang out and talk startups.

    There really haven’t been many events in Toronto lately, so this is a chance to start things up again after a successful Democamp last month.

    Here are the details. See you there?

    meshUp
    The beer o’clock at the Drake Hotel brought to you by meshU and StartupNorth

    Time: 6 p.m. to close
    Where: The Lounge & Dining Room
    Drake Hotel, 1150 Queen St. West

    Everyone is welcome. Space is limited. There is no charge for this event.

    Thanks to our hospitality sponsor and host: Drake Hotel

  • Porn Shops and Tech – Toronto's Silicon Valley

    Startup activity in Canada stalling? VC investment dying?

    Well folks, problem solved.

    050829lIt’s hard to know what to say about efforts like this. I guess that where I believe physical clusters are a sign of success, government officials and universities believe that they are a precursor to success. To that end, more money is being spent building the new Silicon Valley North, this time it is smack in the middle of the porn shop and peepshow strip in Toronto.

    Pun intended?

    What frustrates me the most about things like this, and other projects is that I know there are smart people working within government who understand what technology, software and web startups need, but as those people plug away trying to help startups, programs and projects like this are announced that undermine everything the smart folks have done.

    Everyone wants to go big right away. To hit a grand-slam home-run if only we can just build the right building, or create the right program. There is no evidence however that any of this stuff has ever worked before.

    If beaurocrats and politicians want to have an impact here, then the reality of what needs to be done will be a lot less glamorous. It means Democamp’s at the Imperial Pub and StartupEmpire‘s at cheap nightclubs.

    The only good part of this announcement is that Ryerson is in on the action. I think that school is great and a place that turns out hard workers and great entrepreneurs.

    In the end, it doesn’t matter, Toronto’s tech community (for whom I am not the voice, but just one voice) has long given up on government programs and venture capital. We have focused on getting really good at finding the winners early on, and we are going to start capitalizing on that skill soon. We have to.

    So, the next time you walk up Yonge Street looking for a Kabab or a fake ID, take a look around and imagine, for just one second, what an office on the top floor of Zanzibar would be like.

  • Shutterborg launches

    shutterborg Earlier this week ReadWriteWeb covered the launch of Waterloo based Shutterborg. Shutterborg is the work of Jason Miller at developIT who specializes in design and development of web applications and RIAs. Shutterborg is built using JMDWiki and ameobaOS in PHP, Javascript against a MySQL database.

    Shutterborg is a basic online word processor. It lacks many of the features of it’s online competitors Google Docs, Zoho, and Buzzword. ReadWriteWeb hits the button about the key feature and its’ best uses.

    However, Shutterborg, a new online word processor does one thing really well which makes it a unique tool in this space: it lets you open any URL on the internet and edit it like an Office document.

    …the "Open from Web" option that is presented to you upon launch is a pretty clever invention. Here, you can enter in any URL on the internet to open an exact replica of that web page, with the CSS and images intact. You can then edit it as you desire which could obviously lead to some humorous creations.

    Shutterborg look  like an interesting self-promotion tool for developIT. It is an interesting execution and implementation of an AJaX application. It shows the strength and flexibility of the development frameworks used by developIT. Shutterborg also looks like a great proof-of-concept rich editing application for small businesses and non-technical users that need the familiarity of a word processor for editing web content. Great work by a small design firm to garner some online press and traffic of tools that will be useful in attracting and retaining clients.

  • TinEye publically available

    tineyeIdee has removed the “log in” requirement for TinEye today. Registration is now optional for users, but it does provide additional benefits for users including:

    • Social image searches
      Registered users “Share your search results, or post them to your blog. Just cut and paste the search permalink from your browser’s address bar”. It will be interesting to see if there is a social nature to image search results. I’m curious to see how users will use a social search.
    • Search history
      How many times have you closed a browser window just too early? Ctrl+W is just too easy to make a tab disappear. Registered users have the ability to turn on (or off) a search history in TinEye. This makes it easy to both keep the images and the results that you’ve searched for. I wonder if the TinEye searches are refreshed when the page is updated, or if the search results are cached for future access.
    • Early feature access
      We all like being a part of beta testing new features for useful applications. If you want access to the next generation of TinEye features, you need to register.

    Curiously, called out in the February 5, 2009 release notes is number 4.

    4. Introduced ads. Poor TinEye has to eat!

    No surprises here. I keep asking Leila about how exactly she intends to monetize TinEye. One potential opportunity for monetization is through affiliate programs with products like TinEye Mobile which lets you take a photo of album cover art to search for the album on iTunes and the web. You can imagine that this could work for other objects (books, DVDs, etc). I would love the TinEye Book Edition that allows me to snap a picture of a book cover and add it to my GoodReads or Shelfari book shelves. Great to see Leila, Paul and the Idee team building a world class image search and the tools for users.

    Register for your TineEye account today.

  • Dex goes on the road – Social and Personal CRM

    Dex, a new social CRM application from MercuryGrove is doing a roadshow for the next few weeks to demo their release and spread the word.

    I have been excited about Dex since Mercury Rising was announced.

    This has been such a great, collaborative journey that we decided the best way to tell people about dex was to go tell people about dex. So we’re packing up our best suits, dressing dex up really nice, and taking her on the road to tell people about our development experience, show them the final result (beta), and hopefully get a lot of great feedback that we can jam into the first release!

    Here is the schedule:

    • Toronto – Tuesday, January 20th @ CSI
    • Ottawa – Wednesday, January 21st @ The Code Factory
    • Montreal – Thursday, January 22nd
    • New York – Monday, January 26th @ New Work City
    • Boston – Wednesday, January 28th @ BetaHouse
    • Philadelphia – Thursday, January 29th, 6pm @ Indy Hall

  • Update #2: PWC SR&ED Seminar – Thursday, Jan 29

    Those tickets went fast! By popular demand, the good folks at PWC are going to run an Afternoon SR&ED Seminar Thursday, January 29 as well.

    SR&ED is easily the largest tax credit program available to Canadian companies for recouping R&D spending with over $4 Billion being distributed each year. SME’s can recoup 35% of their R&D spending from the Federal program and then layer on Provincial tax credits as well. Thousands of tech entrepreneurs across Canada have used SR&ED to bootstrap their companies and stretch R&D dollars. This is not a government program you want to ignore. So you might be concerned by the recently announced changes to the SR&ED claims form (T661) and process.

    pwcWell then register now for the upcoming PWC SR&ED Breakfast Seminar. There is no cost to attend, but seating is limited, so you’ll want to RSVP as soon as possible.

    PWC SR&ED Breakfast Seminar
    *Update #2 – Morning & Noon sessions have reached capacity, but an Afternoon session has been added.*
    7:30 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. Registration
    8:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. Presentation and Q&A

    11:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Registration
    12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Presentation and Q&A

    2:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Registration
    3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Presentation and Q&A

    PricewaterhouseCoopers
    King West Rooms 1 and 2
    145 King Street West, 11th floor
    Toronto, Ontario

    Please register by January 26, 2009 at http://www.pwc.com/ca/sred or contact Simone Knott by email [email protected] or phone 416-941-8383 x14498.

    We invite you to join senior members of the PricewaterhouseCoopers SR&ED group as they discuss the implications of these recent changes on the preparation of your SR&ED claims and your claiming processes.

    The seminar will highlight:
    • What the changes are (and what has not changed)
    • How to adapt to the changes
    • Transitioning from the old form to the new form
    • Old vs. new terminology

    We hope you can join us. We know you will not want to miss this opportunity. If you have questions related to this topic that you wish to be addressed during the seminar, please include them in your RSVP.

  • #hohoto – A Legend is Born

    Occasionally you hear about an event and you know right away it is going to be a big deal.

    #hohoto was one of those things. I could not be more proud of everyone who put this together, over $20,000 was raised for the Daily Bread food bank. The local CBC Station brags about raising $100,000+ for the food bank, so it shocks me that in just one night the Toronto Tech and Startup communities were able to do so much.

    I think the team can do $80,000 at least next year. Ticket prices should go up. I would say 40$ but others might disagree, and sponsorship will certainly be more expensive.

    Rob Hyndman was the driving force behind this, but a gigantic group took ownership and made this happen.

    And a legend was born: (video embedded)