StartupNorth

Category: Quebec

  • SmartHippo – Chowhound for Mortgages

    SmartHippo, based in Montreal, has had quite an exciting week. In addition to launching a new version of the site, a US mortgage search engine and comparison community, at Finovate San Fransisco, George Favvas SmartHippo’s CEO has managed to bring together a fantastic advisory board. Board members include Lori Collins, former Senior Vice President and General Manager for LendingTree Exchange; Bill Rice, CEO of Kaleidico; and Toronto’s very own John Philip Green, Founder and CTO of LearnHub.

    SmartHippo is an interesting startup launching a product into a market in turmoil. Interest rates are all over the map, housing prices are deflating, and homeowners are nervous. While there is possibly going to be less action in the mortgage business while the market finds it’s bearings, it may be just the time to bring together a community to ferret out the best mortgage rates.

    LowerMyBills.com was acquired by Experian in 2005 for more than $330M. Bankrate.com has a market cap of $986M. And LendingTree.com is being spun off by IAC. Mortgage origination pays. SmartHippo’s main challenge now is building a community. He is on the right track by “not letting the business model get in the way of business.”

    “LendingTree and LowerMyBills are pure lead generation plays that match the consumer with the banks that pay the most for the lead (not the ones with the best rates). Bankrate lets banks advertise ‘bait and switch’ rates.” While like its competitors SmartHippo makes money with mortgage application origination, their approach is much more transparent: finding and rating mortgage rates and banks is driven in large part by user reports. Transparency works. It is probably only a matter of time before SmartHippo has to deal with a stampede of smart borrowers.

    Check out SmartHippo’s StartupIndex profile.

  • 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.

  • MediaScrape – Will Montreal give us another Capazoo?

    TechCrunch is asking some questions about Montreal-Based MediaScrape. I don’t know anything about them, but it seems like they are either stretching the truth or things aren’t as simple as they seem.

    Being an aggregator of video (letting other people pay for all that pesky production and things like reporters) doesn’t seem like a terrible idea on first blush, but the execution in the case of MediaScrape feels little amateurish. That said, things like “Related Videos” and a handful of other features are useful and relevant.

    Anyone know anything about this company? (UPDATE: I think Heri lays it all out well. I look forward to seeing MediaScrape grow)

  • Launching Tungle

    Tungle went live today. As you may recall, the Outlook plug-in meeting coordinator raised $1.5M from JLA Ventures and Desjardins Venture Capital last year. They had hoped to launch a couple months after winning a 2007 Demo God Award, but instead held off to refine the product. Since then, a number of other companies including Jiffle and TimeBridge have entered the fray.

    But direct competition is not Tungle’s main challenge, the status quo is. No doubt, scheduling meetings can be a pain, but changing one’s routine is a lot to ask of customers. Tungle and its backers went into the deal with their eyes open, acknowledging that people are “creatures of habit” and that it was a key risk to their venture. Time will tell if Tungle’s technology will trump routine. For now, congratulations are due to Marc Gingras (CEO), Fang Yang (CTO), and the rest of the Tungle team on the launch.

    Download Tungle, setup a few meetings, and let us know if you think Tungle will cross the “creature of habit” chasm.

  • Running a startup blog isn't easy – MontrealTechWatch 2.0

    Heri, the brains behind MontrealTechWatch, is calling an open meeting to discuss the future of the blog, and I think, by implication, the future of the Montreal tech startup community.

    Heri has been writing MontrealTechWatch for just over a year, and in that time it has not only become probably the most popular startup blog in Canada (certainly the most popular city-focused), but he has also managed to really solidify Montreal’s reputation as one of the most exciting cities for startups in this country. For anyone outside Montreal, MTW is the first place to go to find out what is happening and who’s who.

    “What I would like MTW to be is to turn it into an independent, self-sufficient entity, that would cover new technology, entrepreneurship, hackers, video games, events in Montreal and beyond. Also being a media entity is not a viable business model these days, so MTW is going naturally to take the path of working with local entrepreneurs and other members of the community.” – Heri

    Heri is suggesting that MontrealTechWatch become more of an entity which can sustain itself and drive the interests of the Montreal community forward, and it seem he also wants to expand past montreal.

    I can understand where he is coming from. Maintaining focus and continually keeping fresh content on a blog is hard work and over time even something as simple as a blog about startups or a tech community can really start to take up a substantial amount of time. Eventually things have to change and the work needs to get distributed.

    This is an opportunity for the Montreal community to step up. As I see it, this is a moment of truth. Are you willing to put in the work to preserve something as great as MTW? No other city has been blessed with such a focused, active, and quality focal point. (in Toronto we have David Crow, but he is a moving target, and sticky notes never hold well)

    Good luck Heri. I have a feeling this is the beginning of something great.

  • iNovia launches a new fund – Seed and early stage venture capital

    iNovia is announcing their new fund today. The new fund, which comes in at $107million is focused on Seed and Early Stage deals in the information technology, life sciences and cleantech sectors.

    iNovia, who most recently participated in the funding of StandOutJobs, has been engaging the startup community pretty directly lately and are usually visible at events like StartupCamp, blitzweekend and others. iNovia promotes itself as “Entrepreneurial Capital”. By they mean that they come from diverse and relevant backgrounds. Instead of being full of ex-banker, iNovia tends more towards entrepreneurs and people with experience working with startups.

    With its recent additions, the iNovia Capital management team now comprises a diverse group of professionals, all of whom have operational or financial backgrounds, coupled with strong technical and business expertise. iNovia has also established a network of Venture Partners and Entrepreneurs in Residence, who provide industry insight and expertise, along with access to a large network of collaborators.

    “Entrepreneurial Capital” can mean something else as well, and I think iNovia just might deliver. My definition of “Entrepreneurial Capital” is an Angel or VC who is just as hungry and hustles just as much as any startup. From coast to coast we hear complaints about poor dealflow for VCs and that this hurts their business. This may be true to an extent, but it is about to get a lot worse for those VCs who don’t show that same Entrepreneurial Spirit. Firms like iNovia, Montreal Startup, EVP and others are all going to be scooping up more and more of the best deals at very early stages simply because they will be engaged closely with the very communities that are giving birth to these startups.

    Technology Venture Capital is a startup business in Canada. It is young, the players are largely inexperienced and the market is small but emerging. This is a good thing. If you are a VC with money to spend, you can still win. There is a massive community forming that is almost exclusively to your benefit and that community is working harder than ever before now.

    We will be watching iNovia closely to see if they live up to all my hype.

  • StartupCamp Montreal 2 – May 15th, 2008

    startupcamp_eve2.jpg

    StartupCamp Montreal 2 has been announced. It is taking place May 15th and will be at the SAT again. I am a little sad that I will have to miss it because of another conference, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun!

    Make sure you sign up, and if you are a startup, you should consider presenting. StartupCamps are one of the few places you can get no-holds-barred feedback on your business plan. If you are interested in presenting, add yourself to the wiki.

    Date : May 15th, 2008
    Time : 6pm to 10pm EST
    Location : SAT – Société des arts technologiques

    They are really stepping it up for this event as well and will provide a bunch of help and support for the startups that are chosen to present.

    1) The top five startups selected to present at the event will have the opportunity to participate in a one-day pre-event workshop session. The goal being to have ?pitch? experts help the companies prepare ahead of the event. The workshop will be hosted by Austin Hill, John Stokes, Vincent Guyaux, and 2 other VC / marketing experts.

    2) Presenting companies will have 8 minutes to present, with 10 minutes of follow-up questions from the event Gurus and the audience.

    3) We will have ambassadors on hand prior to the event and during the event to help with match making and networking.

  • MontrealStartup – A new $3m fund for Montreal startups

    monteral_star_up_logo_small.jpgWe spoke with John Stokes from MontrealStartup last week about an announcement they will be making today. They are announcing a new $3 million fund to invest in early stage startups on the Island of Montreal.

    MontrealStartup is a unique type of VC, they are a consortium of 20 partners, mainly entrepreneurs, based in Montreal who want to do what is best for Montreal. The investors in the fund include John Stokes, Daniel Drouet, JS Cournoyer, Alan MacIntosh, Austin Hill and Mathieu Duffar.

    At $3 million, it is also the smallest fund I am aware of, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing however. Having a small fund is going to force Montreal Startup to act and behave just like a startup. They are going to know exactly what you are going through, because they will be dealing with many similar bumps themselves. It will also force them to learn to adapt quickly in a way that other VCs may not feel the pressure to do.

    This new fund, which is composed of $2 million from The Ministry of Economic Development and a further $1 million directly from MontrealStartup, will be managed completely by MontrealStartup.

    The fund will look at investments between $50,000 and $400,000 to be made in startups who are focused on the Web, Wireless and New Media. MontrealStartup most recently invested in StandoutJobs, and will start investing through this new fund immediately. They are looking for startups who have solid ideas with some market potential but they aren’t necessarily looking for complete business plans. What I like about Montreal Startup, from what I have seen so far, is that they are focused both on providing capital to startups, and using their well established networks through their investors, who are all successful entrepreneurs.

    Due to the size of the fund, there is practically no management fee and the only opportunity for Montreal Startup to profit is to find the best deals that exist in Montreal and then to work hard to make sure that those startups are successful.

    This is good news for Montreal. I am looking forward to hearing about some deals getting done. If successful, Montreal Startup will be one of a new type of VCs in Canada who are far more engaged with local startup communities than ever before. The future success of these funds depends heavily on the amount of local startup activity, and it is in their interest to foster that in a more direct way than the typical VC has done so far.

  • IOUCentral – P2P Banking isn't always so simple?

    iou_logo.jpgWell, that didn’t take long. IOUCentral appears to have been essentially shut down by regulators here in Canada and they have disabled their loan and application functionality and are now repaying any fulfilled loans. The startup, which we covered, launched just a few weeks ago.

    We are not aware of the specific “regulatory matter” that seems to have shut down IOUCentral, and I won’t pretend to know enough about the banking industry to comment, but we did ask them about regulatory issues when we first interviewed them earlier this month. At the time they indicated that their legal agreements should have provided sufficient operating cover. It now appears that wasn’t the case.

    In a recent Toronto Star article, IOUCentral competitor CommunityLend indicated that they were focusing on making sure that regulators were satisfied before their launch.

    ” . . .CommunityLend executives hint they will have an edge because of the time devoted to satisfying a host of regulators across Canada.

    Marleau of IOU Central, however, is under the impression “there is no watchdog watching this business.” . . ”

    This now puts IOUCentral back in the race with CommunityLend and PeerMint among others to become Canada’s first peer-to-peer lending operation.

    We have asked IOUCentral for comment and will update this post with anything they have to say.

  • As The Web Turns – The tales of Capazoo

    250px-flag_of_montrealsvg.pngMontreal seems to be the hotbed for controversy in the Web 2.0 world in Canada. Where else could you find someone who will sell you the Brooklyn Bridge and someone else who will supposedly pay you for joining their social networking site? It is the latter, the multi level marketing site called Capazoo.com that is bringing us the latest dirty laundry.

    Capazoo is a social networking site, in this case it is a lot like MySpace, which charges anywhere from $25 to $35 a year for a membership. The big idea is that the more people I get to sign up, the more referral kickbacks I get. We’ve all seen this before in other disguises, in the case of Capazoo, they have attracted their share of B and C-list celebrities.

    I won’t even try to recount the whole story, but it seems to involve some brothers, at least one of which has been convicted of fraud before, a bunch of ex-NHL hockey players, some online porn kings and a bunch of investors who still don’t seem to know what is going on.

    capazoo.pngLa Presse, a French-Daily in Montreal has been digging in to the story (google translate) and it isn’t pretty. The two founders, who are also brothers, are now in court fighting over who has control of the company and they are also sorting out the small matter of who embezzled how much off the top from the investors money (one side is claiming it was a “10% commission on funds raised”).

    There was also the small matter that one of the two guys who were managing the company had decided that pornography should become a big part of the sites content (who knows — they may have made a fortune doing that), then add on the death threats that were going around and it seems you have something worth writing about.

    Heri has been covering this at Montreal Tech Watch and his last post on the subject stirred up quite a cat fight in the comments. You just can’t make this stuff up folks.

    I am not sure what to make of the whole thing. The worst part is that these guys have sucked a lot of investable money out of Montreal and have left a long trail of investors who probably now have a bad taste for web startups. I haven’t written much about Capazoo up until now because I always felt they were a very poor reflection of the entrepreneurs I know in Montreal. It remains one of the most exciting startup cities in Canada and judging by some of the great projects and startups I have been hearing about, it is going to stay that way for a long while.