StartupNorth

Tag: Startups

  • RIM acquires Tungle

    Congratulations to Marc and the Tungle team. Tungle announced their acquisition by RIM. Tungle had previously raised $1.5M from JLA, Desjardin, and angels and $5M from Commonweatlth. This is a great addition for the RIM team to continue to build out an application suite for the mobile office. Mark MacLeod (@startupcfo) provides additional thoughts and comments on the acquisition:

    Clear Problem

    Tungle just made sense. Finding a time to meet is a huge pain. This may not be the sexiest, flashiest market, but it is huge. Every business person feels the pain.

    Pivots

    We didn’t have this term back in the early days, but Tungle sure went through some pivots. When I joined it was a peer to peer client a la Skype. And it was S-L-O-W.  The service today bears little resemblance to that early product.

    Data-driven

    All startups but especially SaaS startups should be data driven. Tungle was no exception to this. We even built our own custom system (known as Knudderforce) and tracked daily, weekly and monthly stats. Those stats triggered many actions, automated outreaches, etc.

    Luck

    All good outcomes have an element of luck. I am sure there are many examples in Tungle’s case, but the one that stands out for me is closing our Series A funding in September 2008 just as Lehman Brothers crashed and the markets started tanking. If we had been only a few weeks later we might have had a much tougher time closing the round.

    Focus, focus, focus

    I’ve seen many teams get distracted as they grow. The CEO is off attending conferences, the company moves from market to market, etc. Tungle was laser focused on solving its’ users’ scheduling needs. At one point we were doing usability sessions every day. We reached out to every new user. We just stayed focused.

    Platform

    When we first were getting started, investors wondered if this was a feature vs. a product. Fast forward a few years and it is on its way to being a full fledged scheduling platform with APIs for other companies to use.

    Strategic engagement

    An ideal startup for me is one that can develop conversations with potential strategic partners as a natural part of its goto market strategy. This presumes you are building something that is important to the big players and assumes that you have a CEO capable of establishing and building those relationships. This was definitely the case with Tungle and this announcement is just a logical outcome of this reality.

    The icing on the cake for me is that this is an all-Canadian deal. The Tungle team will be staying in Canada and continuing to make things happen.

    Shared calendaring continues to be a difficult problem as you move to the edge of an organization. Just think about how difficult it is to see availability and schedules of people who are not on your GApps domain or your Exchange Server. Tungle gives RIM a leg up in having tooling like BBM and email and now calendaring that blurs the edge of the organization.

  • Does your startup need to be massive?

    Editor’s note: This is a guest post by serial entrepreneur and investor Howard Lindzon of StockTwits and SocialLeverage. He was born and raised in Toronto and has a soft spot for his hometown and Canadian entrepreneurs.  Follow him on Twitter @howardlindzon or StockTwits @howardlindzon.

    Photo by Paul (dexx)
    Creative Commons License - By 2.0 Some rights reserved Photo by Paul (dex)

    In 2008, I was using every speaking chance I was offered to preach that there was never a better time to start a web business. I also put my money where my mouth was and invested in more companies than I could afford and started Stocktwits.

    Let’s assume you followed the advice and failed. Most startups do. You were Lindzon’d. Sorry.

    Good news…you learned a lot and the funding market, never easy, is more open than ever.

    Better yet, the mentoring system and pool of talented angel investors looking to reinvest has never been wider and deeper.

    Techmeme, Hacker News, Fred Wilson, Brad Feld, LInked In, Twitter, Facebook and of course Stocktwits ….all better than ever for connecting, getting smarter about starting businesses and finding the right trends to ride. Y combinator may be too crowded, but Tech Stars, Founder Labs and Startup Weekends are open.

    It is a little intimidating right now to take the first steps because of the bubble talk, startup revolution, competition and massive reach of the last group of leaders. There is not one Tiger Woods of startups, there are 5 you will ultimately stress yourself out comparing yourself too…Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Zynga and Groupon.

    Don’t get caught up in the ‘I need to be Massive’ talk. It’s a trap. Take the ‘Massive’ lessons of geniuses like Reid Hoffman from this great post and than get to work on getting massive one step at a time.

    The game of Risk and world domination is won from the corners of the world unless you can roll non stop 6?s. Don’t bet on that stuff and don’t pitch your investors on stuff they won’t believe.

    Editors Note: This post was originally published on HowardLindzon.com on March 23, 2011 @copy;2011 Howard Lindzon. Republished with permission.

  • Seed Funding – Some New Considerations

    Seed Funding
    AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved Photo by Pictoscribe

    I started writing this post while working on my presentation for Enterprise Toronto‘s Small Business Forum 2010 on raising capital for high growth businesses. I’m by no means an expert at this topic, but there are a lot of basics that entrepreneurs and growth businesses can learn about both the type of capital and when to raise it. But Manu Kumar‘s (LinkedIn) must-read post (and the comments) about his Thoughts on Convertible Debt got me to thinking I would publish my list of resources. And Adeo Ressi‘s (@adeoressi) thoughts on Year of the Startup Default includes implications for entrepreneurs raising a lot of debt, because if Series A funding is more difficult to find than getting traditional bank loans or other sources of capital become more difficult with a large, even capped, debt load. There are a lot implications for entrepreneurs.

    The starting point for my now almost 6 month old talk is the fantastic article by Bernard Lunn on Read-Write Web, The Capital-Raising Ladder, which defines the different types of capital that is available to startup companies and founders. The “ladder” concept is key in the article. Entrepreneurs generally have to start at the bottom of the ladder and work their way up each “rung”. Certain entrepreneurs can skip some of the rungs on the ladder particularly if they have had success in the past, i.e., it’s way easier for someone that has built a successful publicly traded company to raise angel or VC money than a student first out of school, but since much of this is a meritocracy it is easy for young entrepreneurs to demonstrate their ability to build successful companies and raise additional capital.

    The implications of Manu Kumar’s post and Adeo Ressi’s are about the prevalence of startups raising convertible debt with angel investors because it is en vogue. Nivi (@venturehacks) has provided some of the best advice on founder fundraising at Venture Hacks and some good analysis of the impact and benefits of debt for entrepreneurs in his comments:

    “Notes were good technology a few years ago but now there are better technologies like Series Seed that have many of the benefits of debt (speed, simplicity, less negotiation). And debt is pretty complicated when you really look at it. I’m guessing we’ll be back to equity in a couple years, for the better. But Series Seed and other equity docs need to be tested a bit more too.

    2. You can work around this in two ways. The company can’t pay back the debt and it converts to equity at maturity. I always include these in debt agreements.” – Babak Nivi comment on Thoughts on Convertible Debt

    The goal here is for entrepreneurs to have access to information to make informed decisions. I hadn’t thought about the impact that the potential debt load might have on Influitive’s ability to raise loans vs financing in the future.

    I’m interested in the thoughts from Boris Wertz (@bwertz), Roger Chabra (@rogerchabra), Scott Pelton (@spelton), Chris Arsenault (@chrisarsenault), Mark MacLeod (@startupcfo), Craig Netterfield (@cnetterfield), Jordan Banks (@Jordan_Banks), Ben Yoskovitz (@byosko), John Philip Green (@johnphilipgreen) and others.

    • What are the unique implications for Canadian founders in that are unique to the considerations for convertible debt?
    • What are you thoughts on convertible debt notes as an investor?

    Resources for Entrepreneurs

    Here’s my short-list of resources around the mechanics of raising money and evaluating the documentation.

  • StartupFestival – Call for Startup Pitches

    International Startup Festival - Call for Startups

    The team behind Startup Festival (which StartupNorth is a Media Sponsor) has started the call for startups looking to pitch and launch at the festival. They are looking for startups in a variety of verticals, at a variety of stages of corporate development, and looking to raise funding or attention for their companies. It’s a great Canadian event that is guarranteed to have local, national and global investors and press attending.

    Apply to Pitch

    Top 5 Reasons to Pitch at Startup Festival

    1. You didn’t get accepted to Launch, TechCrunch Disrupt or Demo
    2. You’ll be attending anyway, might as well get some great PR & exposure with attendees and speakers
    3. StartupFestival is a great bridge between North America and Europe. And you’re considering accelerating your access to European markets
    4. You’re actively raising funding and you want to get in front of the best investors and coaches in North America
    5. You’re funnier than Dave McClure and Will Ferrell should produce a webisode for Funny or Die featuring “Your Startup Life” with Claire Daines having a reoccurring guest starring role

    Apply to Pitch

  • The Paradox of Choice

    Meagphone

    Crowd at AccelerateMTL photo by Chris Arsenault
    Photo by © 2011 Chris Arsenault

    I love what is going on in Montreal.

    It’s nice. It’s concise. It’s clean. There is choice but it’s not overwhelming. It feels like there is a consolidated effort to make Montreal the hub for startups and technology in Quebec. There are other activities and groups but there seems to be a core group of influencers, activities, and events where high tech entrepreneurs can go to find others like them, potential employees, potential investors, etc.

    I look at Ontario and I am concerned. We have what should be the building blocks for a great entrepreneurial soup. And we’ve seen some spectacular successes (Bumptop, Sysomos, Pushlife among others). But there is a lot of noise. Efforts divided between regions.

    Turning up the volume

    Volume goes to 11 by John Watson
    Photo by © John Watson

    I’m not suggesting a “one ring to rule them all” strategy. There are grassroots efforts, there are provincial government efforts, there are local economic development efforts like:

    It leads to the murky waters that are the entrepreneur community and support infrastructure in Ontario. There is no segmentation. There definitely isn’t self-selection. They use similar words to describe their activities: entrepreneurship, startups, technology, media, growth, etc. As entrepreneurs there is a paradox of choice about who to listen to, where to go for advice, support, mentorship and guidance.

    We started StartupNorth as a way to document our experiences finding, using, evaluating other startups in Toronto and across Canada. It was a way to connect with others interested in startups, emerging technologies and business models, and to talk about the things in a context specific to Canada.

    I realize that the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation (MRI) has added to the entities designed to enable entrepreneurs. They are trying to “spread innovation” through out the province via the university commercialization networks.  The  ONE network that has centres in Waterloo, Kingston, Guelph, Halton Region, Durham Region, Hamilton, Toronto, St. Catherines, North Bay, Sudbury, Ottawa, Mississauga, London, Markham and Windsor. The program is separate but deeply tied to the collaboration between business and academia.

    • Waterloo = University of Waterloo + Wilfred Laurier University
    • Kingston = Queen’s University + Royal Military College
    • Guelph = University of Guelph
    • Halton Region = Sheridan Institute of Technology & Applied Learning
    • Durham Region = University of Ontario Institute of Technology
    • Hamilton = McMaster University
    • Toronto = University of Toronto +  Ryerson University + OCAD
    • St. Catherines = Brock University
    • Sault St. Marie = Algoma University
    • North Bay = Nipissing University
    • Sudbury = Laurentian University
    • Ottawa = University of Ottawa + Carleton University
    • Mississauga = University of Toronto Mississauga Campus
    • London = University of Western Ontario
    • Markham = York University + University of Toronto Scarborough Campus
    • Windsor = University of Windsor

    It’s interesting that California with an estimated population that is 3.7 times larger [1] than Ontario[2] has less innovation hubs than Ontario (12 in California to 14 in Ontario). (Sure from a per capita GDP calculation, Ontario is higher (Cdn$43,847 vs US$38,956) but it’s probably not entirely a relevant metric unless you’re a politician which I am not).

    Photo by postbear eater of worlds – Some rights reserved CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

    I’m wondering if rather than satisfising constituents with perceiving innovation benefits for votes, that we need to look toward innovation, education and economic growth programs that benefit citizens. I keep wondering what we are missing because of the existing programs and repackaging of programs for Ontarios entrepreneurs. Look at the job creation from a single venture firm, Union Square Ventures has portfolio companies with over 557 open jobs around the globe (128 are in NYC + Brooklyn). This is job creation. It’s focused on creating new positions, in a variety of rolls, that hopefully will attract new talent to the location.

    Everyone loves to hates Toronto

    Let’s all hate Toronto. It’s not uncommon for Canadians to dislike Toronto. But I don’t hear the same disdain for Montreal or Vancouver. But maybe that’s because I don’t live with their large gravity well pulling me closer. I choose to live downtown in Toronto because it’s where I want to be. I understand the lifestyle choices that others make to live elsewhere. There are days when the traffic, the people, the crazy, all get to me, but I love the collision of people, cultures, and ideas (go read Richard Florida for more thoughts on the Creative Class).

    Are we missing an opportunity to raise the profile of Ontario companies because we don’t want to embrace the fact that Toronto is one of the major technology/media hubs? Are we diluting efforts by spreading the love and effort across 16 regions?

  • Payroll for startups

    Bank Robber

    The joys of starting a company and setting up the basics, you know things like finding a lawyer, getting articles of incorporation, shareholders agreement, business registration, employment agreements and setting up payroll for employees. It turns out that it has been since 2005 since I thought about the logistics of running payroll in Canada in any detail (BTW if some asks if you want to be in charge of running payroll, the answer is “<expletive /> NO”). The great news is that there is a solution for startups in Canada and it’s inexpensive. Well technically it’s free for companies with <5 employees and only $18/month for >6 employees.

    Payment EvolutionThe company is PaymentEvolution. It’s run by my friend Sam Vassa (@samvassa) and they were recently featured in the Financial Post. Despite the web presence that looks like it was last updated a decade ago, this is a new startup that is up and running and able to help Canadian small businesses with payroll.

    Hallelujah, and it’s inexpensive

    This is a great solution for startups. Basically the deal is there are no fees for the service, however, there are electronic banking fees are passed through to you as a user.

    PaymentEvolution provides no cost payroll processing for smalls businesses with 5 or fewer employees. We’re serious – we don’t want payroll processing costs to encumber the growth of great small businesses. We’re small-business friendly and just want to provide a great service that allows these businesses to focus on what they do best. Like all our plans, we don’t charge extra for updates, the number of pay runs, or silly things like standard reports. We also give these firms the flexibility to pay their employees how they want – traditional cheques, direct deposit or even electronic funds transfer (fees may be incurred by the company’s financial institution).

    This is just what startups need to process payroll and it’s cheap to boot.

  • Mentoring Virtually in Toronto

    C100 is hitting the road (virtually) and will be bringing the next C100 mentoring session to Toronto. We’re working with our partners Extreme Venture Partners and are looking for three companies to participate.

    Interested? Please apply via our application process.

    Finalists will be notified week of July 12.

  • For the love of failure

    One of the main cultural innovations in Silicon Valley is the acceptance of failure. It is an acceptance that extends almost to the point where if you don’t have at least one specatacular mess-up in your past, you haven’t truly lived.

    A healthy acceptance of failure goes hand-in-hand with a passion for risk taking. No one searches out failure, of course, but if you find it and live through it, then that implies you’ve taken a valuable risk and (hopefully) learned from it.

    The traditional view is that Canada is very risk-averse and while this stance has served the country well in some markets (banking sector, anyone?) it isn’t so great for fostering building start-ups.

    Basically, the equation is no failure means no risk. And no risk means no entrepreneurship.

    But again, this is the traditional view of Canada, and one that seems to changing

    So talk about your failures. Heck, begin to celebrate them and wear then as a badge of honor. But in doing so make sure you also mention what you learned and how there is no way you’re gonna do that again.

  • Cisco looking for Canadian innovation

    We understand that the good people at Cisco are poking around up North for some start-ups to play a role in the company’s expanded focus  into the datacenter, virtualization and smart grid markets.

    These are key new markets for Cisco and clearly they want to know what the most innovative start-ups are up to (isn’t the hunt for innovation why all leading companies come poking around here?)

    Cisco’s got a few criteria (big companies love their processes!) but it should be pretty easy. To summarize: :

    1)      Companies must be active in the datacenter, virtualization or smart grid markets

    2)      Must have existing VC investment

    3)      Ready/able to take their business to the next level

    4)      VC-pitch PowerPoint will be accepted only. (they can’t review websites, datasheets or whitepapers)

    The people doing the poking are Cisco’s Corporate Development team, who are responsible for investment, acquisition, strategy and partnerships for the company. So if any of these options sound appealing to you, forward your slides to Tab Borden of the Canadian Consulate < [email protected]>

  • Be the next Bumptop

    Too bad Bumptop wasn’t actually an ExtremeU company. However, the recent acquisition of Bumptop should help raise the profile of the 2010 Extreme University.

    If you’re a student, a founder or just thinking about starting something you should apply to Extreme University. This is a world-class program, from an up-and-coming venture capital firm in Canada. They have a track record of selling companies to big players (Bumptop to Google, J2Play to EA). The Extreme Ventures, XtremeLabs, and Extreme University programs are building into a fantastic training and breading ground for a new generation of mobile and Internet startups. It feels like something big is happening inside the walls of Extreme Ventures.

    Extreme University 2010

    Who?

    We are looking for four smart and fast moving teams to participate. Typically all members of the two-three person team will be deep technically, but at least one of the founders should have a technical background.

    What?

    • Get an initial $5000 + $5,000 (US) per founder in exchange for a 10% ownership stake in your company
    • Move your team to our shared ExtremeU office space at Yonge & King (downtown Toronto)
    • Have weekly mentoring sessions by industry experts in technology, funding, legal, PR, marketing and HR
    • Meet a who’s who of experts at our weekly socials and have an opportunity to practice your pitch and demo your in-progress prototype
    • Have access to local shared resources to accelerate product development (mentors, servers)

    When?

    Applications are due by June 4th, 2010. The program starts Monday June 14th, 2010 to Thursday September 10th, 2010 at the ExtremeU offices in Toronto at Yonge and King. The final demo day will be Tuesday September 16th, 2010 at DemoCamp

    How?

    It’s a great program located in downtown Toronto for early-stage entrepreneurs and founders. The Xtreme Labs has a great track record. If you’re interested, make sure you apply before the June 4, 2010 deadline.

    Alumni – The Class of 2009

    UkenUken Games
    Uken Games makes highly addictive games for social and mobile platforms.

    Uken Games was born in March of 2009 when two normal guys decided they wanted to have super powers. Given real world limitation, they turned to the virtual world to make their dreams a reality. They built Superheroes Alliance, their first game, which eventually grew to over 150,000 monthly active users. Since then, they’ve launched 2 other games: Villains and Twisted Treasure have amassed over 300,000 total users. Going forward, they are committed to building a strong community around each of their games, expanding across other both social (Facebook) and mobile (iPhone, Blackberry) platforms. Uken Games has received a follow on investment and are driving hard towards this goal.

    AssetizeAssetize
    Assetize is a Twitter ad network that enables publishers to monetize their social content. Publishers within the Assetize network range from large news and media organizations to individual users. The company has also partnered with a premiere sports agency to launch FanWaves – a Twitter monetization network exclusively for the sports world. The growing list of FanWaves publishers includes the NHL, NY Knicks, Phoenix Suns, Washington Capitals, as well as several professional athletes.

    Next, the company plans to extend their monetization solution to other social networks, as well as other links stemming from media websites and blogs. Given the nascency of this space and lack of history, one of the challenges Assetize has faced is partnering with advertisers willing to market through social channels – a difficulty that is expected to decrease as brands realize the immense potential of social networks. Following Extreme University, Assetize is generating revenue and has secured a seed round of financing. The company is also currently in the process of syndicating a larger round from local and US-based VCs.

    LocationaryLocationary
    Locationary is changing the way that data on local businesses and other places is collected and verified.

    This data is fundamental to the local search and local advertising markets which have revenues approaching $50 billion a year. Google and other local search engines currently buy the bulk of their local business data from aggregators that have employees copy the printed yellow page directories. The current process can’t scale and results in expensive, stale and outdated information typically 1 to 2 years old. Locationary has created a patent-pending, crowd-sourced solution to collect and verify this information across the globe.

    Locationary is growing quickly and now has users in over 70 countries. They’ve collected data on over 20 million places and are now updating over 100,000 places a day. In this business, the fresher the data, the more valuable it is; and that’s what makes them special. Locationary has raised a Series-A investment through the connections made at ExtremeU.

    Extreme Labs has a history of bringing great mentors and presenters to interact and engage with ExtremeU participants. In 2009, participants met some of the best lawyers, founders, VCs and others in Canada.

    Albert Lai Kontagent Startup Lifecycle
    Ali Asaria Well.ca How to get funding
    Colin Ground Cassels Brock & Blackwell Setting up a VC friendly structure
    Dan Debow Rypple Sales & Marketing
    Leila Boujnane Idee Business Development
    Mike McDerment Freshbooks Product Management
    Rick Segal JLA Why do a startup now?
    Rick Yazwinski Tucows Agile Development
    Sal Rocco Stonewood Group How to hire superstars

    The list of already confirmed speakers in 2010 is amazing: