Venture NL Books $16.3M First Close

The Newfoundland and Labrador government will kick in $10 million to the first close of the Venture Newfoundland and Labrador II fund, adding on to a $6.3 million private sector funding raise.

Like the first Venture NL fund, Fund II will be managed by Pelorus Venture Capital and the partners say the fund will have enough capital to back pre-revenue companies in the province for a decade.

The

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Why to attend Entrevestor Live

I’m going to say something you’d expect me to say: the content at Entrevestor Live will be outstanding.

Entrevestor Live is a virtual conference starting at 1 pm AST on Wednesday that will demonstrate how Atlantic Canadian startups have grown into global corporations. It will offer a concise program (about 190 minutes) and low price ($70+HST) so just about anyone in the startup community can

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Jobs: Supercluster, Highline Beta

In our Jobs of the Week column today, we’re showcasing openings for a Head of Design, Venture Studio, at Highline Beta in Toronto and a Manager of Partnerships and Stakeholder Engagement at Canada’s Ocean Supercluster.

Canada’s Ocean Supercluster is an Atlantic Canada-based organization with national scope that supports sustainable economic growth in Canada’s ocean-based industries while

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Sandpiper Unveils $10M 1st Close

Female-focused, seed-stage venture capital fund Sandpiper Ventures has closed the first $10 million of a planned $20 million funding round for its flagship SV Fund, with the backers including 30 women and Scotiabank’s Roynat Capital.

Founded last year, Sandpiper now boasts the largest number of individual investors of any Atlantic Canadian VC fund, the fund said in a press release -- a

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Acoustic Bait Prepares For Field Testing

An Antigonish company developing lobster bait that relies on sound instead of fish, circumventing bait shortages, is preparing to start testing its technology this fall.

Peter Nicholson is the majority owner of Acoustic Bait Technologies, which he founded with his business partner, Chet Chisholm, in summer, 2019. With the help of professors David Barclay at Dalhousie University and Russell Wyeth

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BreatheSuite Secures FDA Approval

St. John’s-based medtech company BreatheSuite Inc. has received 510(K) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its device that helps people to user their inhalers properly.

Receiving FDA clearance means that BreathSuite can now sell its BreatheSuite Metered-Dose Inhaler V1 device in the U.S. The company said in a statement on Tuesday it is the first company from Newfoundland and

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Marketing Entrepreneurs Launch Software Firm

The owners of Halifax marketing agency Kula Partners have spun off a software development company that promises to bring private-sector, user-centred design sensibilities to public sector agencies.

Business partners Jeff White and Carman Pirie started What We Make It three years ago, incubating it as a division of Kula. The new service company promises to build software by consulting with its

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Design2Build Announces Cohort

Dalhousie University has announced the startup cohort for its second annual Design2Build accelerator -- an eight-month program meant to help deep tech entrepreneurs develop and manufacture their products.

The accelerator is split into three modules, with each lasting two or three months. The first module focuses on product design, the second on building a product and the third on scaling

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Meta Announces Research Grants

Halifax advanced materials unicorn Metamaterials Inc., which boasts a C$2.1 billion market cap on the Nasdaq, will dole out a basket of $150,000 research grants, with winners being announced January, 2022.

The grant program, called Ideas for Innovation, will be open to scientists working on advanced materials research. Applications open Oct.1 and the deadline to apply is Dec.15.

A group of

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Bernadette Fernandes Joins Emergence

Emergence, the life sciences incubator based on Prince Edward Island and targeting a national market, has made a new hire: Bernadette Fernandes, a corporate consultant who specializes in export development.

Since 2011, Fernandes has been CEO of The Varanda Network -- the consulting firm she founded, which is certified by the non-profit Forum for International Trade Training and counts among its

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