For Marcel LeBrun, it was like winning the Stanley Cup.

“Just like hockey players who work all their lives toward that goal of winning the Stanley Cup, entrepreneurs work very hard to build a startup into a successful business,” said LeBrun, reflecting on the landmark exit of the company he co-founded, Radian6. “We felt like we won the Stanley Cup of tech entrepreneurship. It is also a great feeling to achieve this together with a team of people you really enjoy working with every day.”

The exit of Radian6, which was announced five years ago last week, on March 30, 2011, transformed the landscape across Atlantic Canada in startups and technology. LeBrun’s company sold to Salesforce.com of San Francisco for US$276 million in cash and US$50 million in stock. Certainly there have been larger Atlantic Canadian deals -- only seven months after the Radian6 exit to Salesforce.com, Q1 Labs, originally of Fredericton, sold to IBM for an estimated US$500 million. And Ocean Nutrition Canada of Dartmouth sold out to Royal DSM for $540 million in 2012. But it was the Radian6 deal that changed the startup ecosystem for good.

The deal rewarded a group of angels, who reinvested in other companies. It allowed an early institutional investor to invest more in New Brunswick. It helped to finance the regional accelerator Propel ICT. It drew other tech entrepreneurs into the startup field and it established Salesforce.com on Canada’s east coast.

“The exit resulted in getting the fastest growing software company in the world, Salesforce.com, to set up shop here in New Brunswick,” said LeBrun. “That is huge. This is the most innovative and fastest growing company in tech and software. How do you attract a company like that?

Only through an acquisition. They are an important presence here, creating leading edge-jobs, contributing to economic growth, investing in charitable causes, and developing top tech and business talent which is very important to our future growth.”

Read Our Most Recent Entrevestor Intelligence Report

Founded by LeBrun, Chris Newton and Chris Ramsey in 2006, Fredericton-based Radian6 quickly established itself as the pre-eminent company in the world for monitoring and analyzing social media. Its technology monitored hundreds of millions of conversations every day across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and online communities, delivering insights in real-time. The company was profitable by 2009, and it was used by half of the Fortune 500, including Dell, GE, Kodak, Molson Coors, Pepsico, and UPS. Radian6 employed 350 people in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia when the deal closed.

The sale of Radian6 became a windfall for many Atlantic Canadian investors in the company. For example, the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation turned two investments in Radian6 totalling $326,973 into an investment return of $9.25 million. The money has helped support investments in numerous companies since then.

“Since the acquisition, there has definitely been an increase in entrepreneurship in the form of new incubators and many, many new startups,” said Ramsey.

“Many of those startups are doing well, some doing very well. It’s a numbers game. Many will burn out, a few will make it, and a few of those will become leaders in their industries, big enough to make it all worth it. The ones that don’t make it, they will graduate new, skilled people who will hopefully go on to create or join new startups, and the ecosystem will continue to grow.”

The next Facebook, Google or Amazon can be created and built in Atlantic Canada, Ramsey added.

Canada’s Venture Capital & Private Equity Association named the Radian6 sale the 2012 VC Deal of the Year for its venture capital backers Summerhill Venture Partners, Brightspark Ventures and BDC Capital.

Our Analysis of the CVCA Deal of the Year Award

Best of all, the company continued to grow in Atlantic Canada as part of Salesforce. A year later, Salesforce.com did another Atlantic Canadian deal, buying GoInstant of Halifax, reportedly for more than $70 million.

“An exit isn’t an event where we lose a local company to the U.S.,” said LeBrun. “Rather, it is an event where we gain a new company from the U.S. This brings in more outside capital and a lot of spin off benefits. Also, you often see employees from the start-up eventually spinning-out to start new ventures of their own. It has a generational effect.”

He said the Atlantic region has a huge potential but needs more talent.

“The potential is always infinite,” said LeBrun. “There is no better time in history to be innovating and solving our world’s most important problems. With the internet, cloud computing, mobile technology, the internet of things, big data, and the world of socially connected consumers, the opportunities are boundless and easier to address than ever before. I also love the growth of impact-minded entrepreneurs - those who are not just looking to maximize shareholder value but also looking to improve our communities and our environment. It is a great time to be an entrepreneur. The global market potential is incredible and it is entirely accessible from any location. All that is needed is execution.”

According to the Information and Communications Technology Council of Canada, ICT sector growth in Atlantic Canada has surged since the Radian6 deal. New Brunswick saw its sector grow more than 8 percent since the deal while the ICT industry in Nova Scotia grew 8.3 per cent in 2014 alone. Prince Edward Island is one of only four Canadian provinces to experience positive ICT GDP growth each year since 2011.

“It has grown tremendously thanks to the effort of many dedicated tech leaders, mentors and investors in our community who choose to contribute their time and energy for the betterment of our region,” said LeBrun. “Just look at the last two cohorts of companies that just came through the Propel ICT programs. The activity level is incredible. Radian6 played just a small part and the credit goes to our region’s mentors, teachers, investors and incubators.”

Propel ICT’s Launch36 accelerator became one of the first resulting activities to follow the Radian6 and Q1 Labs deals. The accelerator in 2011 set a goal to graduate 36 companies within three years. Propel ICT exceeded its goal in 2015 with 49 Atlantic Canadian startups emerging from Propel’s Launch36 accelerator in 33 months.

“The potential is to hit over 200 startups per year in the total ICT ecosystem,” said Gerry Pond, one of Radian6’s early investors. As well as being a driving force behind Propel ICT, Pond and several other investors in Radian6 have created East Valley Ventures, which has invested in more than 30 startups in the past five years, all but one in the Maritimes.

The portfolio includes such highflyers as Resson Aerospace, Smart Skin Technologies and Spotful.

“We have to keep in mind there is a high turnover rate of 30 to 40 percent after five years in operation,” said Pond. “This is a normal condition in healthy ecosystems globally. However we should see a couple more Radian6s or Q1 Labs by 2020. I’m personally out on the far end of that, predicting a $1 billion exit by 2019 from Atlantic Canada.”

He added that Propel ICT now operates in all four Atlantic Provinces and graduated 33 companies in 2015 alone.

“Propel ICT now serves all four provinces and the next cohort’s two streams received 162 applicants by February 2016,” said Pond. “I estimate this is about a five times growth factor in the last five years.”

Propel ICT’s success is one example of how the Radian6 exit impacted the region, he added. “It put New Brunswick and the Maritimes on the map as a credible centre for ICT startups in new tech fields,” said Pond.

The former head of New Brunswick Telecom said he remembers the Radian6 exit well, and that it put millions of dollars in circulation for startups, the ecosystem and tax revenue.

“It was rewarding on two fronts,” said Pond. “I was part of a team that built $400 million of value in just five years in New Brunswick with New Brunswick founders and a New Brunswick management team. It returned on my investment 23 times, a record rate of return in the millions for me and other angel investors.”

And as for LeBrun himself, he spent almost five years with Salesforce as Senior Vice-President of Tech & Product Marketing Cloud. He left the company in September, 2015, and now describes himself as a tech and social impact entrepreneur.

“It is a rare and special accomplishment that we will always enjoy looking back on,” he said, reflecting on Radian6. “However, an exit isn’t the final goal of business. It is a step along the way. It was important for us to continue to work to see that the company was successful, now as part of Salesforce.com, and to ensure that we built a great reputation in the region for having created lasting value.”

Mark Taylor, a verteran journalist and entrepreneur, is the owner of Fredericton-based Delora Media.

Mike Kirkup is moving on.

The director of Velocity, the University of Waterloo’s technology incubator, said in an open letter on Tuesday that he is leaving to become the CTO at Kitchener-based Encircle.

“After four years of working to make it the best place in the world to build a startup, the time has come for me to go help a startup become the best in the world,” said Kirkup in the letter. "I truly love the team we have built at Velocity and will miss working with them every day."

Kirkup will head the technology team of Encircle, which will soon move out of the Velocity facility but remain in the Communitech Hub. Encircle provides real-time documentation and collaboration software for the Property/Casualty insurance industry.

Under Kirkup’s leadership, Velocity has grown into the largest free accelerator/incubator in North America.

Velocity is based in the Communitech hub, where it has recently expanded to encompass a total work space of 36,711 square feet. At the end of 2015, the incubator had the capacity for about 74 to 76 companies at any one time. With the recent expansion, the capacity has risen to 120 companies.

Velocity: A Unique University Facility

An alumnus of the University of Waterloo and the region’s most successful startup, Research in Motion (now BlackBerry), Kirkup has been the director of Velocity since 2011. As of late 2015, a total of 163 companies entered Velocity during Kirkup’s tenure, and more than 40 have graduated from the program.

Graduates include such companies as the chat service Kik, Thalmic Labs, whose Myo armband lets users wirelessly control technology through gestures and motion, and Vidyard, whose platform helps marketers use video to reach their audience. As well as finding clients, the companies have been darlings of venture capital investors. Kik has raised a total of US$120.5 million, Vidyard US$60.7 million and Thalmic Labs US$14.5 million.

Velocity said last year that its graduates had raised a total of $250 million (valued with the Canadian dollar at par to the US dollar). Velocity also helps to fund early stage companies by contributing seed capital totaling $400,000 each year to the best prospects. 

Serial entrepreneur Vijai Karthigesu considers himself a citizen of the world, and the latest location he’s developing a business in is Sydney.

The native of Sri Lanka last year founded his fourth business, Ubique Networks Inc., based it in the Cape Breton city and has ambitious growth plans.

Ubique — pronounced U-bi-quay, it’s the Latin word for “everywhere” — has developed technology that significantly reduces the lag time in online communications, especially in multi-player online games.

The company received notice last week when it announced that it had received funding from Innovacorp and Toronto-based Extreme Venture Partners.

The venture capital funds together invested $1 million in the company, and Ubique has leveraged that investment into a further $1 million through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and the Industrial Research Assistance Program, or Irap.

Orenda: The Top Sydney Company in I-3

Karthigesu, who is based in Toronto, came up with the idea for Ubique because he has a background working with telecom service providers like Rogers and Bell. He noticed that there is a huge problem with multi-player online games: when players in different parts of the world are playing one another, the system is much faster for the player closest to the server, giving that player an unfair advantage.

“We came up with an idea that will fix the Internet or end this frustration to make the technology better,” said Karthigesu in an interview Tuesday.

“We looked at gaming industry online, which is struggling with the lag and is a very big industry — it’s a big pain for this industry.”

The gaming industry is now worth $15 billion, and more than 700 million people around the world play multiplayer online games or are engaged in e-sports. Ubique said the numbers are growing.

Ubique’s solution is to develop a network of remote servers, so the players are always playing on a server based roughly equal distances from each of them.

It now has servers in Toronto, Seattle and Chicago and is growing the network.

As he was developing plans for the company, he spoke with Jim Deleskie, the CEO of Sydney-based Mimir Networks (formerly Heimdall Networks), who suggested Ubique consider Cape Breton as its base. Karthigesu checked out Sydney and was impressed with the coding talent and support from the community and government programs.

So the company and its five-member development team are now based in Sydney, though the sales team is in Toronto.

Ubique was listed as a regional finalist for Innovacorp’s recent I-3 competition, but had to leave the race once it became apparent that Innvoacorp was considering in equity investment in the startup.

Ubique has so far tested the product and plans in the next three months to roll it out with consumers. The goal in the next year is to prove the product can generate revenue and use that to come up with a larger funding round to grow internationally.

“Our plan is to prove the revenue model  and go to the second round of financing to help us go global,” said Karthigesu. “In 12 to 18 months, we hope to be a global company with global customers using the product.”

A disruptive technology that eliminates the need for landfills will soon be operational on Nova Scotia’s South Shore, according to Peter Vinall, CEO of Chester-based Sustane Technologies Inc.

Sustane has developed technology that allows solid waste destined for landfills to be made into clean and valuable products such as fuel pellets.

The Sustane facility to be built near the Chester landfill at Kaizer Meadow will divert over 90 per cent of material away from the landfill.

Vinall said the Sustane technology is unlike other techniques that create biomass from waste because it lowers contamination by plastics to a negligible 0.1 percent.

Such a low point of contamination means the products have commercial value.

“This is the first technology that can take raw garbage destined for landfill and separate it into clean products,” said Vinall, who has worked around the world in the bio-energy and pulp and paper industries.

Sustane was the overall winner in the 2016 I-3 Technology Start-up Competition, the biennial contest run by Innovacorp, which recognizes the best new innovative business in Nova Scotia.The company’s winnings totaled $225,000.

“The win brings money which is always important, but more than that is the validation,” said Vinall, whose previous roles include president and CEO of the AV Group in New Brunswick.

The Impact of the I-3 Competition

The Sustane core technology was developed by the company’s second co-founder and chief technology officer Javier De La Fuente of Spain.

Vinall and De La Fuente met three years ago. “I was looking for something like this and what he was doing was amazing. When we combined this with a new cleaning idea we had the complete solution….” Vinall said.

The pair founded Sustane in 2014 with chief financial officer Robert Richardson, an accountant and businessman.

Work on the $15 million Chester plant will begin this spring.

When it’s completed in the third quarter of next year, the plant will employ 20-25 people in a 24-7 operation.

Vinall said Chester should be able to close its landfill within a few years. Initially, the landfill will be needed to bury a sand-glass grit waste, equal to 5-10 per cent of current waste. In the future, a use such as road construction may be found for it.

He said the plant will produce no pollution. “It’s a benign process. Our process does not use combustion but rather steam cooking.”

The fuel pellets produced will be sold for power generation, while plastics and metals will be recycled. Some of the plastic will be converted to oil that will be used to run the plant.

The company sees an opportunity to build a total of three plants in Nova Scotia to deal with almost all landfilled garbage. That would make Nova Scotia a world leader in recycling. Sustane is also talking to other communities in Canada and the U.S.

The company has proven its technology with funding from Innovacorp and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

To get the plant built, Sustane is securing a further $15 million. “Some federal money is available, and we are securing both debt and equity investors,” Vinall said.

Vinall said he’s learned a lot about being an entrepreneur.

“It’s been month to month surviving at times,” he said. “But we’ve proven the technology and raised enough money.”

He said the technology offers environmental benefits and saves cities money on landfilling.

“Our facility in Chester will be equivalent to taking 17,000 cars off the road in terms of greenhouse gas impact and will also prevent the possibility of contaminants leaching from landfill into groundwater.”

Eliminating landfill slashes the production of the greenhouse gas methane.

“Animals and landfill are the two main sources globally of methane, each accounting for about a third of the total,” he said.

“Organic material rots and gives off methane, which is 25 times as bad as CO2 when it comes to warming.

“I remember from my days growing up on a dairy farm near Melbourne, Australia that cows belch a lot of methane.”

Disclaimer: Innovacorp is a client of Entrevestor.

This week in Jobs of the Week, we are featuring three positions in the marketing, managerial, and software categories.

Startup Zone out of Charlottetown, is looking for an Executive Director, while Halifax-based HealthQR is seeking a Marketing Coordinator, and McKenzie College of Moncton wants a Software Tester Instructor. 

Startup Zone is a new incubator launching in Prince Edward Island with the goal of connecting start-ups in the region and forming a community of support around them.

HealthQR is an early stage startup and the developer of an app that helps patients manage their prescriptions.

McKenzie College of Art and Design is a liberal arts college.

Our Jobs of the Week column features positions that are currently available on the Entrevestor Job Board. Entrevestor and Qimple operate the Entrevestor Job Board which helps match job openings and candidates within the tech and start-up communities.

Charlottetown

Startup Zone

Executive Director

Startup Zone is looking to hire an Executive Director for its Charlottetown office. The Executive Director is responsible for general management and operations of the centre, program development, community events and outreach, marketing and communications, financial management, and fundraising. Qualifications for the position are a Bachelors Degree and two to five years’ experience in a similar role. Desired skills include program development, partnership development, event management, marketing, communication, problem solving, community outreach, management, and Google applications.

Halifax

HealthQR

Marketing Coordinator

HealthQR is looking for a Marketing Coordinator to maintain the reputation, credibility, and visibility of its brand among customers. Candidates should be motivated individuals who are capable of working with tight deadlines and multiple projects. Responsibilities for the position include customer service, social media presence, coordinating materials inventory, sales support, training support, website management, and attendance of conferences and trade shows. Qualifications for this position include a minimum of five years’ experience working with a target-driven marketing team, evidence of successful implementation of a marketing plan, and experience in marketing mobile technology. HealthQR is looking for candidates with a post-secondary education in business, marketing, public relations or a related field, Photoshop proficiency, and project management training.

Moncton

McKenzie College

Software Tester Instructor

McKenzie College is in need of an instructor to deliver courses in software testing, computer programming, test execution, and all related content. Responsibilities of this position include the quality delivery of assigned courses, maintaining a positive learning environment, ensuring academic integrity, tracking daily attendance, and grading tests, labs, assignments, and exams. Qualifications include a college degree or diploma in Information Technology or a Bachelors in Computer Science, five to 10 years’ experience in a software development role, and experience using C++ and Python. 

Halifax-based Lux Wind Turbines wants to revolutionize the wind energy industry. But its first big impact may be in the way equity crowdfunding is carried out in Canada.

The company has launched a campaign to raise between $500,000 and $800,000, which would fund the test project for its new form of wind turbine. The campaign is worth examining because it involves several different regulatory frameworks and could be a model for future campaigns.

What’s more, Lux Wind is the first company ever to raise money using a crowdfunding framework recently approved by the Ontario Securities Commission and other provincial regulators.

If the crowdfunding and trials are successful, Lux Wind believes its turbine can solve one of the problems bedeviling the wind energy industry – economic feasibility. These turbines can be constructed and installed at least 40 percent cheaper than conventional wind turbines, and that means that they could be used profitably without government subsidies.

“It’s a technology that has a lot of potential to really change the industry,” said CEO Terry Norman in an interview. “It’s a Canadian design, has Canadian entrepreneurs behind it and it’s a chance for us to show the world what we can do.”

Read About Lux's Technological Innovations.

Norman is a veteran of the Nova Scotian wind industry and says the reason traditional wind turbines are so expensive is so much of the machinery is high in the air, difficult to install and maintain. And the structure has to turn to face the wind.

Designed by Saskatoon-based engineer Glen Lux, the Lux two-megawatt turbine looks like an eggbeater with six blades that catch the wind and whir around a vertical axis, regardless of which way the wind is blowing.

Norman said the design – which won an award from a division of NASA two years ago – cuts the manufacturing and installation costs by at least 40 percent, and that means these turbines could generate electricity profitably in any jurisdiction.

Norman has decided to crowdfund the test product on the FrontFundr platform, and in doing so is entering uncharted waters in crowdfunding in the country. Equity crowdfunding – or the sale of investments to a broad range of people over the internet – is regulated in Canada by provincial security commissions, so there is a patchwork of regulation.

Ontario and a few other provinces (including Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) recently approved what’s known as “the crowdfunding exemption” to existing security rules. It allows any investor to invest as much as $2,500 in a campaign. Lux is the first Canadian company to launch a crowdfunding campaign using the crowdfunding exemption.

However, this exemption has only been approved by five provinces. Retail investors in British Columbia and Saskatchewan can invest in the campaign through the more restrictive “startup exemption.” They can invest up to $1,500.

Accredited investors – which is what regulators call rich people – from any province can invest as much as they like.

OSC Crowdfunding Rules Took Effect in January

And within Nova Scotia, Lux Wind is raising money through a Community Economic Development Investment Fund, or Cedif. Nova Scotia retail investors qualify for an equity tax credit under the scheme.

Prior to the crowdfunding campaign, Lux Wind  already raised about $90,000 from family and friends.

One of the interesting things about the crowdfunding campaign is that retail investors should end up with a majority stake, as the company is selling off as much as 78 percent of the equity. Norman said there will be more fundraising efforts in the future, which will undoubtedly dilute early investors, but for now he feels it best that the company have a diverse base of shareholders.

He also said there is a lot of interest in the crowdfunding community in Canada about the outcome of the Lux campaign. This sort of layered approach, in which the rules apply according to the province, may be a model other issuers in the country adopt. And the wind industry, of course, will be watching the development of the Lux turbines.

“The large turbine manufacturers won’t want to see the thing because they have a lot of money invested in the [current system],” he said. “But this is really going to change the industry.” 

Dartmouth marine biologist Lawrence Taylor won first place in the Sea++ Competition on Sunday for an automated visual inspection system that can improve efficiency and data analytics for seafood producers.

Sea++ was organized by Louisbourg Seafoods as means to bring in tech experts to help a traditional industry improve its productivity. The idea was that startups or researchers have ideas and understand technologies that can help established businesses compete better. It launched the competition in February with the goal of finding innovators who can solve seafood industry problems, and the winners were announced on Sunday in Sydney.

The Cape Breton seafood company offered a first prize of $5,000, which Taylor claimed for his work in using imaging technology in seafood plants to help generate and analyze data on various species of seafood. The system can help retailers and restaurants authenticate the origin of the fish, and tell producers important information about the fish they are harvesting. That information is especially important given the sparse funding available for research.

“A big element of it is just having your hands on the data,” said Taylor in an interview. “That’s a huge challenge because when they do have the money to do the research the sample size (of the fish being monitored) is always small.”

Ubique Lands $2M, Preps for Series A

Taylor’s company NovaSpectrum places imaging equipment in the seafood processing plants, and scans fish as they move along the conveyor belt. It can classify the size of the product. And using different frequencies of light, such as infrared, it can tell such qualities as fat content, which can reveal a lot about the fish’s feeding habits. NovaSpectrum will retain the intellectual property for the system.

Taylor said the technology can be used to efficiently gather data in experimental fisheries such as whelk or sea cucumber. Such data can be critical in gaining approval from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in harvesting new species.

In the coming months, Taylor will assess the market for his technology and work on a minimum viable product. And he will continue to work with Louisbourg Seafoods. Manager Glen Fewer said in an interview the company has an optical sorter at its shrimp plant in North Sydney, and it could be used to test Taylor’s software.

Fewer said the company is looking forward to talking further with several of the entrants. These include Wendy Muise and Allyson White of Scotchtown Labs, who won the $2,000 second prize for a marketing strategy for the company. It also includes Susan Beaton, whose crate coolers to assist in shipping live lobster won the $1,000 third prize.

Fewer, a marine biologist and a judge in one of the early knockout rounds of Sea++, said the competition grew more intense in the final phase. He added that it allowed the company to connect with a range of innovative people whom it otherwise would have never met.

“It was something that we didn’t have a guide or a model for and we kind of made it up as we went along,” said Fewer. “But I can honestly say that the quality of the applicants was at such a high level that it exceeded expectations.” 

CARIS, a Fredericton company that has developed over 37 years into a leading producer of marine mapping software, has agreed to be acquired by Teledyne Technologies Inc. for an undisclosed price.

The companies said in a statement that the deal is expected to close by the end of June. In joining Teledyne’s digital imaging segment, CARIS will remain in Fredericton and expand its advanced software solutions and support for a wide range of products.

Based in Thousand Oaks, Calif., Teledyne Technologies makes a range of technology, including sophisticated instrumentation, digital imaging products and software, aerospace and defense electronics, and engineered systems. The company has a market capitalization of US$3 billion, and its sales last year were US$2.3 billion.

Halifax's InNetwork Acquired by gShift

In buying CARIS, it is buying one of the world’s leading providers of software for underwater mapping.

“By providing powerful data processing, mapping and geospatial imaging software, CARIS ideally complements both our marine instrumentation and digital imaging businesses,” said Teledyne Chairman, President and Chief Executive Robert Mehrabian in the statement. “CARIS immediately extends our marine capabilities, advancing the delivery of imaging and information from Teledyne’s broad portfolio of marine sensors and systems. Furthermore, we believe that CARIS will help Teledyne further improve our software and real-time processing tools across our sonar and bathymetric and topographic LIDAR businesses.”

CARIS began in 1979 when University of New Brunswick Professor Salem Masry was approached to advise a client on digital mapping software. The company until now has remained a family-owned business based in Fredericton, with offices in the Netherlands, U.S., U.K. and Australia. Some 140 people work at its 50,000-square-foot Fredericton headquarters.  

“The combination of CARIS with Teledyne is a positive development for the company’s owners, employees, and customers,” said Masry. “I am pleased to see CARIS continue its name and operations, including its presence in Fredericton, the Netherlands, the U.S., the U.K. and Australia, while offering employees additional opportunities for collaboration and advancement across Teledyne.”

Swift Labs, an end-to-end wireless product design and development company, has struck a partnership with Miovision to design, develop and test products to improve traffic flows in modern cities.

The two Waterloo Region companies issued a statement today saying they would collaborate on hardware products put forth by Miovision for Smart Cities across North America.

Having recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, Miovision has grown into a leading traffic platform provider, with 650 customers in 50 countries.

It recently issued a request for proposals for a patented design, and in responding Swift Labs produced a fully functional prototype in seven weeks that Miovision CEO Kurtis McBride described as stretching “the laws of physics, beyond what we thought was possible.” It led to the two companies forming the partnership.

“We believe in promoting and working with local entrepreneurs where possible,” said McBride in the statement. “Swift Labs is an expert in design, having the skills to bring concepts with strict parameters into a truly innovative and technically sound product—all of which will comply with international regulations.”

After a successful product design and several testing engagements, Miovision invited Swift Labs to partner on future products, said the statement. 

Under the partnership, the two companies will design, test and certify products at an accelerated rate.  They said it means cities worldwide will have access to leading technology to upgrade their systems to help manage traffic flow, decrease traffic congestion and manage technical upgrades in a timely and efficient manner. 

“I believe in Kurtis McBride’s vision for smart cities,” said Swift Labs CEO Anthony Middleton. “With that mindset, I didn’t hesitate to work closely with Miovision during the RFP process to better understand the use case, the process and the road map.  Our partnership naturally evolved as Swift Labs product designs hit the mark at a strategic level as well as fit into today’s requirements.”

The organizers of the Kira Awards have announced the finalists for the awards, which are presented annually to members of New Brunswick’s knowledge industry.

In a statement, the organizers said the awards, which will be presented at a gala in Fredericton on May 5, are focusing this year on innovation and entrepreneurship.

“In business we know that ‘knowledge’ is a fundamental component of how we operate,” Heather MacLean, 2016 KIRA Awards Co-Chair, said in the statement. “As the KIRA Awards mature, it only makes sense for us to recognize that we need to celebrate innovation and all that it brings to our province, region and country as a whole. We are fortunate to have tremendous world class talent right here at home.”

And the KIRA finalists are:

Most Promising Start-up:

•Eigen Innovations

•Gemba Software Solutions

•SimpTek Technologies

Economic Impact:

•Groupe Savoie

•IBM

•The Learning Bar

Innovative New Product or Service:

•Mycodev

•Resson Aerospace

•Thermal Wood Canada

Industry Champion:

•Dr. Ali Ghorbani

•Dr. Dhirendra Shukla

•Keith McIntosh

Premier's Innovation Award - Private

•Malley Industries

•Smart Grid Innovation Network - SGIN

•Velante

Premier's Innovation Award - Public

•Cities of Saint John, Fredericton, and Moncton, Service NB, Department of Public Safety, and Ambulance NB

•Horizon Health Network - NB Telestroke

•New Brunswick Cancer Network Dr. Kumar

Entrepreneurs with new ideas are invited to apply for Dalhousie University’s third annual $100K Competition, part of the university’s LaunchPad Accelerator.

The $100K Competition is one of several Launch Dal initiatives organized by the Norman Newman Centre for Entrepreneurship. The contest is modelled after the $100k competition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It’s the entry point for Launch Dal’s on-campus LaunchPad Accelerator which runs at The Collider from mid-May to mid-July. Anyone interested in the program can apply here until April 29.

The 10 top finalists receive $10,000 each in non-dilutive funds through the competition and are accepted into the LaunchPad.

“We started Dal's on-campus LaunchPad Accelerator in 2014, largely driven by the early successes of teams like Spring Loaded Technology, Analyze Re, and Sage Mixology, participants in the initial Starting Lean course in 2012,” said Professor Mary Kilfoil in an email. 

“We see our role as feeding the entrepreneurial pipeline in the ecosystem, and helping to fill a need in the market where university-based early-stage startups are still developing their go-to-market strategy.” 

The LaunchPad Accelerator is an accredited eight-week Canadian university accelerator program for early-stage startups that have validated their business model and achieved some market traction.

The accelerator brings together mentors, venture capitalists, and serial entrepreneurs. It provides prototyping capacity and other discounted services to help the early-stage ventures better enter the market.   

The programming is modelled on that offered through the REV program at Communitech in Kitchener, Ont. 

After growing quietly for several months, Appili Therapeutics Inc. of Halifax announced Tuesday it has received a key U.S. regulatory designation for a drug that treats Clostridium difficile infection, or CDI, in children.

The company said in a statement the Food and Drug Administration has granted orphan drug designation to its drug candidate ATI-1501. This medicine removes the bitter taste from a long-standing drug so that children are more willing to take it, thereby improving its effectiveness.

It is the latest step for a young company that has created excitement in the region’s biotech community. Appili was formed last year when CEO Kevin Sullivan, one of the most experienced biotech execs in the region, partnered with Bloom Burton & Co., a Toronto investment bank specializing in healthcare. Together, they formed a company to identify promising drug candidates and take them to development, including ATI-1501.

“In just three months, we received orphan drug designation from the FDA,” said Sullivan in a statement. “Having this quick turnaround is an indication of the high quality of the regulatory team we have built, and an important step on our path to becoming the first company to offer an approved treatment for C. difficile designed specifically for children affected by this serious infection.”

Sullivan came to Halifax in 2013 as CEO of the drug discovery company DeNovaMed after spending 10 years (including four as COO) with London, Ont.-based Viron Therapeutics Inc., which was developing a cardiovascular drug. The company raised more than $35 million in equity and non-dilutive capital and took its lead product through Phase 2 trials.

Last year, Sullivan left DeNovaMed and linked up with Brian Bloom and Jolyon Burton, who he’d known for years. They agreed to launch a company targeting treatments for infectious diseases and Appili was born. The company is in the process of closing a round of seed financing and is developing two drug candidates: ATI-1501 for CDI, and ATI-1503, an antibiotic that could fight deadly infections such as Klebsiella pneumonia. Appili has hired six PhDs and plans to hire another three in the coming month. Seven of them will be based in Halifax.

Appili applied for and quickly received orphan drug status for the first drug. The designation grants the company reduced FDA application and administration fees, tax credits for clinical research in the U.S. and seven years of marketing exclusivity. The company hopes to take its CDI drug into clinical trials next year.

The FDA granted the application because CDI is one of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s most urgent antibiotic-resistant bacterial threats. It affects more than 500,000 Canadians and Americans each year and causes 29,000 deaths annually.

A drug called Metronidazole has been used to treat the condition since the 1970s, but kids don’t want to take it because of its dreadful taste. Like something out of Mary Poppins, API-1501 masks the bitter taste making children more likely to take their medicine.

“We teamed up with formulation experts to reformulate and taste-mask the bitterness of Metronidazole,” Sullivan said in an email from Amsterdam, where he is attending a conference. “This orphan application is one of the first steps in our regulatory strategy, which will take the product into human clinical testing and subsequently to approval.”

Google has invited two up-and-coming Canadian startups – Waterloo-based EdTech company Knowledgehook and Halifax-based contract management startup PACTA – to pitch at its annual Demo Day next month in Silicon Valley.

They are the only Canadian companies to pitch to investors and respected judges at the event at the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., on May 4. In total, 11 companies from the U.S., Canada and Mexico will pitch at the Google Demo Day.When Google held its Demo Day for female-led startups in December, the winner was another Canadian outfit, Bridgit of Kitchener.

“Being invited to pitch by Google shows that our technology is not only cutting edge, it is also solving a real problem for businesses across the globe,” said PACTA Co-Founder and CEO Charlotte Rydlund in a statement. “Companies can dramatically increase their productivity and minimize risk by turning their contracts into smart contracts.”     

Knowledgehook has developed new gaming software that analyzes the academic performance of math students. Currently trying to raise more investment, co-founders Travis Ratnam and James Francis will deliver the pitch.

Knowledgehook Nears New Funding

“We’re thrilled to share our software with potential investors,” Ratnam said.  “We believe our products will be pivotal in connecting teachers and school boards all over the world with data that identifies what concepts students are struggling with and also provides them with immediate teaching solutions.”

Knowledgehook software analyzes the academic performance of math students in real-time play to recommend to educators alternative teaching practices.

Since March 2015, Knowledgehook software has been used by more than 65,000 students and teachers in math classes throughout Canada and the U.S.  The company is currently going through the Rev accelerator at Communitech in Kitchener.

A graduate of the Propel ICT and FounderFuel Accelerators, PACTA has developed software that helps organizations, especially large corporations, manage their vast portfolios of contracts. It tells the organization when an action is needed in each contract, and how external events may impact the company’s contracts.

PACTA was named one of Canada’s Top 25 Up and Coming ICT companies by Branham Group.

“PACTA enables better business relationships and better results and is the future of contract management for businesses everywhere,” said Isak Rydlund, PACTA co-founder and Chief Operating Officer. “We look forward to representing eastern Canada in general, and Montreal and Halifax in particular at Google Demo Day.”

Venture for Canada unveils cohort

After receiving a record 1670 applications, Venture for Canada has announced its 2016 cohort of fellows, awarded to students representing 22 universities from across the country.

The group received twice the number of applications from a year earlier. This year’s applicants were vetted through a four-step process involving a written application, video interview, phone interview, and in-person Fellow Selection Day, where applicants went through an intense 10-hour series of interviews.

The new group of fellows includes a diverse mix of Canada’s best and brightest talent, coming from a variety of educational backgrounds and institutions. They include a Vancouver native who is graduating as valedictorian of an Ivy League university, an alumnus of The Next 36, and the 2016 HSBC Woman Leader of Tomorrow for Central Canada.

“We continue to be impressed by the high calibre of applicants and the many diverse ways they have been preparing for this opportunity,” said Scott Stirrett, Venture for Canada’s Executive Director. “They are inspired and committed to learning everything they can about startups.”

MMAAZZ launches advanced sensor tech

MMAAZZ Technology, a division of Moncton-based Masitek Instruments, has released its new advanced sensor technology, designed to transform how the packaging industry detects and prevents damage in the production process.

The result of two years of client consultation, the technology release is a complete overhaul of the sensor technology that drives the company’s products. ShockQC, PressureQC and VerticalQC are acrylic replicas of packaging containers that are placed in client’s production lines to generate real-time sensor data. The sensors measure variables in the production process such as shock or pressure which cause product damage and costly downtime.  

In addition to a vastly enhanced sampling rate and Bluetooth beacons, the new sensors are enabled with a direct calculation of IPS (Inches per second) velocity measurement as well as Scuff Index, a revolutionary new indicator for the packaging industry.

“One of the most significant accomplishments of this release is the new Scuff Index,” MMAAZZ EVP of Global Business Development Pablo Asiron said in a statement. “Scuffing was identified as a significant problem as it reduced the recycled-life for returnable bottles and significant aesthetic damage to non-returnable containers. With this release, we offer the first and only sensor with a Scuff Index calculation that quantifies the scuffing that a container is experiencing when processed through the line.”

Volta hackathon set for April 29-May 1

Volta, the Halifax startup house, will hold an open hackathon April 29-May 1. Following on the success of the Global Game Jam in January, Volta is now hosting a hackathon at which participants can make anything – hardware, software, games, whatever.

The winner of the 48-hour event will take home $1,000, and tickets ($5 for individuals and $10 for teams) are available here.

Rather than have judges, the participants at the event will vote on the winner.

TSX Ignite set from Halifax

The Toronto Stock Exchange will hold TSX Ignite at the Marriot Harbourfront in Halifax on May 10. It is a free half-day conference that will focus on how to build and fund great businesses.

The speakers will include: Gregory Phipps, Managing Director, Investment, Innovacorp; Patrick Keefe, Partner, Build Ventures; Gillian McCrae, Vice-President and EIR, Propel ICT; Steve Nicolle, Board Member and Former CEO, STI Technologies Ltd.; Steven Uster, Co-Founder and CEO, Fundthrough; Som Seif, President and CEO, Purpose Investment; Brad Langille, President and CEO, GoGold Resources Inc.; and Frederic Ors, Acting CEO, Immunovaccine Inc.

The panel discussions will deal with such issues as transitioning from startup to a successful company, preparing to raise money and funding options that entrepreneurs are probably ignoring.    

There is no charge for the event but seating is limited. Tickets are available here. 

Hacking Health Launches in Halifax tonight

Hacking Health, a movement that encourages innovation in healthcare, will hold its first Halifax cafe and chapter launch this evening at 5 pm at the IWK Goldbloom Pavillion.

Luc Sirois, founder of Hacking Health, will attend the meeting as guest speaker.

This is the first in a series of cafes and workshops leading up to a healthcare-focused hackathon in November.

The organizers said 120 people have already signed up to attend the event, which aims to connect health professionals with developers, designers and innovators. The signup form can be found here. 

Fiddlehead Technology, which makes forecasting systems for the food and beverage industries, has closed a $1.8 million round of seed financing from Build Ventures and the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation.

Halifax-based Build Venture accounted for $1.5 million of the round.

Moncton-based Fiddlehead said it will use the money to increase its development and data analytics team, and to expand the sales efforts led by its co-founders David Baxter and Shawn Carver.

“Forecasting has often been more art than science,” said Baxter, the company president, in a statement. “But with our prescriptive analytics, we can go beyond simply measuring forecast accuracy to offer data-driven recommendations to improve performance. That leads directly to more accurate demand forecasts, allowing companies to lower inventory, improve service levels and boost margins.“

Build Invests $1.9M in Spring Loaded

Icejam Attracts $3M from Build

Carver and Baxter are two veterans of the New Brunswick tech community who teamed up in 2012 to launch a data analytics company. They eventually settled on the food and beverage industry, and partnered with McCain Foods to help with the development of Fiddlehead’s flagship product, Forecast Guardian. Forecasting demand is essential to food producers to make sure they don’t waste product that doesn’t sell, and to ensure they’re not penalized by retailers for having insufficient stock.

Forecast Guardian works with a food producer’s existing budgeting and operations software, layering over it to analyze factors that the company may have previously overlooked. It analyzes data on such factors as weather patterns, economic conditions and holidays to more accurately predict the demand for specific types of food.

In an interview, Baxter said Fiddlehead and McCain are now “coming out of the co-creation initiative” that has validated that the product. Now they plan to work with other food producers to install the system and ensure they can use it to predict demand in their specific markets.

He added that he and Carver will personally be leading the sales effort initially because they understand the product and are the best people to work with new clients on optimizing performance.

“As co-founders, we need to understand and be close to our customers and we need to help them understand what they should focus on to create value,” he said. “Once we understand exactly what that sales process is, then we can look at expanding the sales staff.”

Fiddlehead is the tenth investment for Build Ventures, and Partner Rob Barbara said the firm was attracted to the company because of the strength of the founding team and the size of the market.

“It’s a massive market,” he said in an interview. “There are 4,600 food and beverage manufacturers in North America alone that would benefit significantly from Fiddlehead’s platform. “

He added: “But the No. 1 reason is the team. Shawn and David are not just really experienced and smart but followed a wonderful business approach and are a pleasure to work with.”

After a successful first year in which he invested in four new companies, Chris Moyer believes that Venture Newfoundland and Labrador provides an investment model that other Atlantic provinces should emulate.

Moyer is the Director of Pelorus Venture Capital, the young firm that manages Venture Newfoundland and Labrador. Moyer and his partners worked together for years at GrowthWorks Atlantic.

The fund, which invests in ICT, ocean tech and medtech, comprises $10 million from Newfoundland and Labrador, $2 million from BDC Capital, as well as funds from angel investors. What’s unique about the model is it draws money from government and private investors and assigns a professional manager to the fund.

“We’re using a model that can be highly effective for Atlantic Canada, which has a very early-stage startup ecosystem with a lot of seed-level companies,” said Moyer, a Saint John native.

“The gaps that exist in Newfoundland and Labrador exist elsewhere in Atlantic Canada. There’s the problem of how to get angels invested.”

Moyer said the companies that receive funding know Venture Newfoundland and Labrador will invest more if they hit their milestones.

“A percentage of our fund is dedicated to follow-on investment,” he said. “Private funds allow everyone to work together to push the companies forward…. In all our investments, angels that invested in our fund invested their own money in the companies as well.”

He said the size of the rounds raised by the four companies – Sequence Bio, HeyOrca!, Clockwork Fox and Sentinel Alert – were impressive.

Private investment fund Killick Capital also invested in all of these companies.

Pelorus, Killick Invest in 3 Startups

“With our first four companies, private investment alone ranged from $525,000 to over a million. . . .It puts Newfoundland and Labradorian companies on a level playing field with companies elsewhere. I’d love that opportunity to be available for all Atlantic Canadian companies.”

Moyer said that many pieces of a nurturing ecosystem are already in place in the region, including effective programming offered by regional accelerator Propel ICT, incubators, contests, and knowledgeable mentorship.

“When we started talking about this fund about three years ago, people wondered if there would be enough good companies to invest in. We said, ‘They’ll be there,’ and they are. Now, we’re looking at more investments.”

Moyer relishes helping early-stage companies, believing it’s at the early stage that he can add the most value. For years, he’s been known as the guy who gets his hands dirty at the GrowthWorks Atlantic fund in Halifax.

He’s known for being skeptical about most ideas, but once he’s on board he’s a champion for his companies.

He’s a Launch36 mentor and he serves on the board of eight portfolio companies, five in Newfoundland.

“Early stage companies need help at the strategic level,” he said. “Interesting decisions are made at this stage, such as who will the company’s clients be? How should the product be priced?

“Small seed companies have one or two founders and maybe one or two employees who may not be able to help with these decisions. It’s important CEOs can talk to someone who’s seen and experienced a lot more than the team.”

Moyer joined Growthworks Atlantic 11 years ago as a controller. He had gained a CMA designation and was finishing an MBA at Saint Mary’s University. He did his Bachelor of Commerce at Dalhousie.

He instantly felt at home in the startup world, where he was able to use his talent for out-of-the-box thinking.

Now, he said he and the team at the new fund are committed to “growing companies to the point where we have a vibrant economy.”

It’s a theme that’s also big at his home: Moyer recently became engaged to Gillian McCrae, currently vice-president of Propel ICT.

“We met at a Propel selection camp. We got in a fight during our first meeting,” he said with a grin. “It’s all startups all the time in our house.”

Spring Loaded Technology, the Dartmouth company that is making the bionic knee a reality, is staffing up its marketing department and looking for two individuals for key positions.

The company, which announced a $1.9 million venture capital investment in March, has posted openings for a Vice-President of Sales and Marketing and a Marketing Coordinator on the Entrevestor Job Board.

The four-year-old company has developed the Levitation knee brace, which gains energy when the knee bends and then releases it when the knee strengthens, increasing the power in the joint. It has applications for athletes, soldiers and people with mobility problems.

Spring Loaded has had a busy year. It raised US$208,652 in an Indigogo campaign and signed a contract worth $1 million with the Canadian Department of National Defence. 

Our Jobs of the Week column features positions that are currently available on the Entrevestor Job Board. Entrevestor and Qimple operate the Entrevestor Job Board which helps match job openings and candidates within the tech and start-up communities.

Dartmouth

Spring Loaded Technology

Vice President of Sales and Marketing

This person will work closely with the CEO to develop the Spring Loaded sales and marketing teams, and to grow pipeline. He or she will have to design and implement the framework and processes to scale the sales and marketing functions effectively. As the team grows, this person will focus more on marketing than sales. Spring Loaded is looking for someone with a proven track record of marketing or sales experience in a senior management role. It wants someone who has consistently exceeded quotas and met strategic objectives using various methods including traditional, digital, automation, inbound, content, etc. A bachelor degree is required, as well as a willingness to travel.  

Marketing Coordinator

The Marketing Coordinator is responsible for coordinating various digital and event-based marketing initiatives, copywriting, assisting with public relations strategy, organizing tradeshows, and interacting with customers. This person must work closely with senior management, including the CEO and VP Marketing, to set and execute on the marketing and sales strategy. The successful applicant should be a self-starter with effective project management skills and attention to detail. He or she must have experience writing and creating content, and in using Hubspot and Wordpress.

Livelenz, a Bedford-based company that analyzes data for fast food restaurants, has been sold to Mobivity Holding Corp. for less than $1 million in stock in a bid to grow with the larger company.

Chandler, Arizona-based Mobivity, whose shares trade over-the-counter in the U.S., said in a regulatory filing that in January it paid 1.015 million of its shares for all the stock of Livelenz. Mobivity shares at the time were trading for about 70 US cents, each, which values the deal at the time at about C$950,000.

Livelenz had previously received two equity investments from Innovacorp totaling $1.4 million, and the provincial innovation agency is now a shareholder in Mobivity as a result of the acquisition. Those shares are subject to an 18-month lockup.

Livelenz and Mobivity initially met because they are both partners with Epson, the Japanese manufacturer that dominates the market for receipt printers for fast-food and casual dining restaurants.

Halifax's InNetwork Acquired by gShift

Founded in the Annapolis Valley in 2010, Livelenz understood that receipt printers revealed a wealth of data about a restaurant’s business that could be used to reduce waste and increase sales. The company partnered with Epson to exploit the Japanese company’s dominance in the point-of-sales market in the sector.

Two years ago, Mobivity bought SmartReceipt, Inc., a similar company that offers coupons and special offers through receipts for such companies as Subway, Baskin-Robbins and Dairy Queen. Now Mobivity is offering both this technology and that of Livelenz.

 “It was a good deal for both parties in that we’re both in the same space,” said Livelenz’s former CEO Jon McGinley in an interview Monday. “They are an Epson partner and we are an Epson partner and the technology alignment made sense.”

Since Mobivity trades publicly, there are limits to what it can say about its future plans (Chief Financial Officer Christopher J. Meinerz declined to discuss them Monday). But it’s obvious the company is planning to grow its new Halifax operations.

McGinley, who has a background in marketing, has joined Mobivity as Vice-President of Marketing. He is one of about five employees at the Bedford office.

Last week, as reported in the Chronicle-Herald, Nova Scotia Business Inc. announced payroll rebates for Mobivity, under which it will create as many as 40 new jobs, in which case it would pay out $5.8 million in salaries over the five-year period.

The Arizona company offers Livelenz a far larger reach than it would have had independently. Its clients include Subway, Sonic, Jamba Juice, Chick-fil-A, and Baskin-Robbins.

Mobivity recently reported that in 2015 it lost US$3.9 million (a mild improvement from the 2014 loss of US$4.1 million). Its sales meanwhile rose 15 percent to US$4.6 million.

The company’s shares were quoted on Bloomberg Monday at 63 US cents, down 40 percent in the past year.

 “We are well-positioned for expansion in 2016, and we are now beginning to realize the revenue growth from all of the groundwork laid in 2015,” Mobivity CEO Dennis Becker said in its results statement. “we are engaged in discussions with a number of new brands, and we see 2016 as a year that will continue to bring great opportunities."

Disclaimer: Innovacorp is a client of Entrevestor.

We want to heartily thank the dozens of founders who have completed our survey, and remind those of you who haven’t done so to please fill it out.

We’re thrilled with the response we’ve had to the survey. A vast range of founders have taken a few minutes to fill out our 23 questions, and we’re starting to get a picture of what happened in the community last year.

You can find the survey here, and it only takes two to four minutes to fill it out.

We’ve already done preliminary calculations on what we’ve received, and made our first presentation to a government department. We can’t reveal the findings yet but here is what we can say: policy makers’ interest in startups has never been stronger.

From the new prime minister on down, the federal government is embracing innovation as a pillar of economic development. Same goes for the provincial governments. They want reliable information on the startup community so they can design better policies.

The Entrevestor data analysis is most authoritative source of information on the East Coast startup community, but we need your help to complete it. We need you to provide us with information on the surveys. We promise it will be 100 percent confidential.

The result will be a better information group of policy makers as they design programs to help your business. 

I was really lucky in February to drop by the coolest accelerator I’ve ever heard of – Project Music in Nashville.

At an old brick transit garage in the heart of Nashville, two cohorts of music-related startups have been held, mentored by business leaders in one of the hottest music markets in the world. The focus is not, as you’d expect, on country music. It’s on any startup that could disrupt the music industry.

As a writer, something that fascinated me is that the latest cohort is being held in tandem with a complementary program called 1440, which is for startups looking to disrupt the publishing industry. Nashville also has a vibrant publishing industry.

Read my USA Today Story on Project Music

These accelerators draw applicants from around the world, and one of founders I met while reporting on Project Music was Kam Lal of Montreal, who’s startup Notetracks was going through the music Program. Lal and his girlfriend had been watching the TV series Nashville and thought the city looked cool. When he learned there was a music-based accelerator in the city he applied and was accepted.

“It’s the music environment,” said Lal. “If I had known it had been here a long time ago, I would have been here a lot sooner.”

Two-year-old Notetracks has developed a platform that lets musicians record music, analyze it and make notes for one another. The company released the $9.99 app last year, and it is being used by more than 1,000 musicians and producers.

Lal is a member of the second cohort. The first cohort took place in winter 2015, and its eight teams each received $30,000 in funding in exchange for 7% of their company.

Cohort 2 features a core of seven teams, including representatives from Ukraine and Canada, with each receiving $47,000 for a 7% stake. A local non-profit also joint the program but did not receive funding.

One thing that is really cool about Project Music is the role of the local business community in launching and sustaining the program. The Country Music Association and local businesses were and are major sponsors. And all the investment came from private investors in the Nashville business and music community. 

There are two lessons for Atlantic Canada in Project Music. First, this is how to get traditional businesses to back startups. And second, Project Music is a living example of how to use the indiginous culture of an area to spark new technology. It's something we should look at more.