StartupNorth

Category: Ontario

  • DemocampGuelph 5 – 4 New Companies!

    Jonas and I went to Guelph yesterday for DemoCamp Guelph 5. When we arrived in Guelph we stopped by the Well.ca offices and picked up some Roti (try the Doubles, delicious!).

    We had a great time and the venue was cozy. We didn’t find out the beer was free until the end though!

    The demoing companies were:

    Doctopus
    Doctopus is a hosted content management solution. So far they have built a nice looking platform that can manage and deploy a large number of sites. The CMS market is big, but also saturated to say the least. I think they will need to focus on a more defined target market/vertical. That said, it really did look nice.

    Liveoffcamp.us
    LiveOffCamp.us is a site that connects students with off campus housing. Right now the interface is a little disconnected. You enter a query and it emails you the results. The crowd thought that they should provide the results right on the site, and I agree, but getting an email should be kept as a second option.

    MyVine
    Myvine.ca was the best looking site of the night. Their tagline “Simple referral management” is confusing. They don’t manage your referral system, they help you manage a list of recommendations for your business. MyVine is sort of a GigPark turned on its head, where instead of putting all of the control in the hands of the users, the merchant gets to control what recommendations get posted and which ones don’t.

    FOSSFactory
    FossFactory is a site that helps manage bounties that are put on features in Open Source Software. For example: If you use a piece of open source software and you want to have a feature added to it, then you can put a value on it, deposit the money, and then developers can claim the money if they develop the feature. Other people who also want to see the feature developed can add to the bounty.

  • Presenting companies announced for CIX 2008

    If you are going to have a beauty contest (or not), the contestants may as well be good looking, and CIX seems to have delivered. I have to admit that I didn’t even think the list would turn out this well. There is a cross section of everything from startups to companies looking for follow-on rounds.

    There has been some debate recently about the value of events like CIX, and I have to admit, I have not been easy on similar events in the past, but I have to say that I think it is time to move on. If you think CIX is all about a bunch of companies getting up and presenting, then you are wrong. I think of CIX more like a DEMO or Techcrunch 50 for the Canadian community, and that is something we need.

    More than that, a lot has changed in the Canadian Startup community in the last year, and this is a chance to start putting more names to faces, and for more shy startups to start coming out of the shadows. It is also a chance for the Venture Capital community to pull back the curtains and start connecting more closely with the community.

    We are using the CIX space to put on a second StartupCamp. So if you didn’t get a chance to get your name out there at CIX itself, make sure you put your name in the hat for StartupCamp.

    The list of presenting companies was released today, you saw it here first!:

  • DemoCampGuelph Tonight – April 9th 2008

    Jonas and I are heading to DemoCampGuelph tomorrow. The lineup looks great, it includes: Liveoffcamp.us!, doctopus, myvine and fossfactory.

    While this isn’t a startupcamp, Jonas and I will be doing a rapidfire pitch of our own: (Less Stupid) Startups, including some secrets on how to get covered on blogs a little more easily.

    So if you are in the area, or just want to find out what is happening in Guelph (lots of cool stuff!), then sign up and I am looking forward to seeing you there. Be sure to say Hi!

  • Spring Acquisitions: Meriton Networks & Sirific Wireless

    As promised… we have a couple spring acquisitions:

    Meriton Networks, an optical networking infrastructure company based in Ottawa, has been acquired by Xtera Communications. Meriton had taken venture financing from: Desjardins Venture Capital Group, Newbury Ventures, Nomura International, Primaxis Technology Ventures, RBC Capital Partners, VantagePoint Venture Partners, VenGrowth Capital Partners, Skypoint Capital. The acquisition price has not been disclosed.

    Sirific Wireless, a fabless semiconductor company specializing in CMOS RF transceivers based in Waterloo, has been acquired by Icera. Sirific had taken venture financing from: Agilent Technologies, BDC, Celtic House, GrowthWorks, Hunt Ventures, Intel Capital, Solowave Investments, TD Capital, and Tech Capital. The acquisition price has not been disclosed.

    Hat tip to Mark McQueen of Wellington Financial, who described the exits as follows:

    Although details weren?t announced, these don?t feel like successful exits. Probably somewhere in that middle of pack for that vintage. Neither company had announced the kind of revenue generating customer traction (think Dragonwave and Clearwire) that drives a home run. And they both raised tens of millions over 8 or so years. Yes there was value built (which the strategics can afford to fund and harvest) but after that long these are deals where the clock ran out.

    Sounds like a little portfolio spring cleaning to me.

  • StartupCamp Toronto 2: Leila Boujnane

    I am excited to announce that Leila Boujnane, CEO of Idée, will be closing the evening. Idée, who we have previously profiled, is one of Toronto’s biggest startup success stories, and the wonderful thing is that they are just getting started.

    Leila is constantly providing help and guidance to other entrepreneurs, myself included, and she has even been known to take a whip along when a startup isn’t hustling as much as they should be.

    I am going to send Leila 5 questions next week, so I want your help. Post or email your questions about starting a company and growing it to be as great as Idée.

    Our Sponsors

  • stopfinder.com – Should you take transit or take the car?

    stopfinder_small.pngThere have been a handful of Parking-Finder map sites lately. They were all neat, but seemed to lack that extra bit of information I wanted to know: How much is this going to cost?

    As you would have it, I have a meeting today up in the hinterlands that is Young and St. Claire. Because it is pouring rain I thought about taking the car. Because I don’t know the area, StopFinder popped in to my head. The founder of the site, Michael DiBernardo emailed us a couple of days ago to let us know that it launched.

    Stopfinder offers a huge amount of information, but it is all presented incredibly clearly. Subway and Bus stops are placed with nice big markers, and parking lots are easy to spot.

    With StopFinder you enter the address of where you are going and the time you will arrive, as well as how long you will be staying. StopFinder then calculates the closest parking lots, how much they cost in total, and which is the best combination of distance and cost from your final destination. Pretty cool, but what I love is that it also shows you public transportation options for getting there as well. In this case, we are basically right beside a subway stop. So I will do the right thing, leave the car in the garage and jump on the subway. That’s fine by me. I hate driving.

    Michael pointed out two kinds of pain that StopFinder helps solve:

    StopFinder finds the closest, cheapest parking lots and the surrounding TTC stops for a Toronto destination. This eases two kinds of pain:

    (a) There aren’t many good ways to figure out how to get where you’re going on the TTC right now. We think StopFinder beats what is out there.

    (b) When planning a get-together, some guests will come by car and others by transit. You can provide everyone with a single link that helps them get there.

    I am pretty happy with this service so far. The amount of data they seem to have aggregated is incredible. They also have an API that other developers can use to access their data.

    StopFinder might not have the largest audience yet, afterall it is Toronto-centric, but they are solving a real problem. Finding parking was never the problem for most of us, it turns out that it was knowing when to take a car and when to take transit. Even I didn’t know that until I experienced the solution, but I can tell that StopFinder will become a part of my toolkit from now on.

    Give it a try and let us know what you think. Post in the comments below.

  • Launching TalentEgg

    Two months ago we received an email from TalentEgg’s founder, Lauren Friese, brimming with excitement about her latest venture into the world of online recruitment. TalentEgg, which just hatched, is a website that connects high quality Canadian employers with students and recent grads that are looking for meaningful work.

    Job seekers using the site will be able to build TalentCards (Resumes), ask for advice using Grad Q&A (Forum), and read up on how to land a job on the TalentEgg Insider (Blog). Employers can create a free profile, but have to pay to advertise specific job openings, create awareness with site sponsorship, search through TalentCards, and send out targeted emails to job seekers. For the month of April the site is free on a trial basis to employers. TalentEgg hopes to cater to small and medium size employers who can’t make it to every campus recruitment day.

    This is a tough market to crack, TorStar’s Workopolis dominates; even the venerable Monster has had trouble getting traction in Canada. And TalentEgg faces a classic chicken or the egg problem: job seekers are interested in sites with lots of jobs and rational employers will only pay to advertise once the site’s user base reaches a certain threshold. Despite all this, something tells me it is only a matter of time before Lauren Friese figures out how to make this site lay some golden eggs. Congrats on the launch!

  • Reminder: CIX and StartupCamp Deadlines

    Time is running short to apply to pitch at CIX, and also to get help with your pitch at StartupCamp.

    The deadline to apply to CIX is April 4th, you can apply here. It is worth noting that the pricing structure has changed based on feedback and it is now half the price it used to be for startups who present.

    StartupCamp Toronto 2 is happening at the same time as CIX, and you can apply to present here, you have until Sunday April 13th for that one.


    We’d like to thank our first confirmed sponsor as well, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, as well as service providers who have purchased tickets: Mike Middleton (Q1Capital Partners) and Frances Fast (Q1Capital Partners), and Daniel Shapiro (Microsoft)

  • AideRSS Announces Google Reader Integration

    AideRSS, who we originally covered last July, and who recently took funding from TechCapital Partners in Waterloo, are announcing integration with Google Reader today.

    The extension, which comes in the form of a Firefox plugin, gives AideRSS its first opportunity to hook in to the everyday workflow of heavy RSS users. Until now, You more or less had to go to AideRSS.com to make use of their tool. Building a Firefox extension like this will give them additional reach.

    The appeal to the end user is that you can use AideRSS as an initial filter for your feeds. Getting up in the morning and seeing that you have 500 unread items is painful, and I know that I will enjoy having a first line of defense.

    So, we have for you, our lucky readers, 50 invitations that will get you in on the ground floor of the beta. Get em while they’re hot.

  • StartupCamp Toronto 2 – Tuesday, April 29th

    startupcamplogo_small1.pngStartupCamp Waterloo 2 was another big success, and we had a blast at StartupCamp Montreal, so we thought it was time we had another StartupCamp here in Toronto.

    The format for StartupCamp is simple: 5 Startups will have 5 minutes each to pitch themselves. The audience will then have twice as much time to grill them on everything from their marketing plan to the product itself.

    The 5 startups will be selected in advance.

    The event will be held on Tuesday April 29th at The Carlu in Toronto. We are putting on this StartupCamp during CIX, which is a new conference with a focus on connecting VC ready startups and VCs.

    The first run of tickets are available here. We will post more information as things come together.

    Sponsors

    Our kickoff sponsor is the Canadian Innovation Exchange.  If you are interested in sponsorship options, please get in touch.

    cix.png