Five founders carted off very big cheques worth a total of $125,000 at the standing-room-only Volta Cohort pitching competition in Halifax on Wednesday night.

In its fifth pitching event, the Volta Cohort invested $25,000 in each of five companies, meaning it has now channeled a total of $650,000 into 26 startups based in Atlantic Canada. Volta, the Halifax startup hub, organizes the event twice

St. John’s-based Oliver POS is taking on about 10 clients a week for its online point-of-sales systems, so it now has clients on six continents. And it’s hoping to ramp that number up to 30 per week soon. The company, which began last year, says these sales have come about through customers seeking the company rather than the other way around.

“We’ve never spent a dollar in marketing,” said CEO

The Sobey School of Business at St. Mary’s University is seeking startups to participate in its annual student venture capital competition and possibly join the international search for “the most VC-backable startup.”

For several years, the Sobey School has hosted the Canadian regional finals for the international Venture Capital Investment Competition, or VCIC. This is an international

The University of New Brunswick has released a new innovation ecosystem map, which demonstrates the importance of R&D to the provincial economy and makes a call to increase research spending.

The university on Tuesday released the New Brunswick Innovation and Ecosystem Map in a ceremony at Planet Hatch in Fredericton. The map was produced by Global Advantage Consulting, which concluded R&D is

I will be in St. John’s early next week and taking part in a few events Tuesday that will feature Entrevestor’s startup research and my own seminar on media relations.

The first event is the presentation of our Atlantic Canada Startup Data report, which outlines the growth of the regional startup community, including such metrics as funding, revenue, employment and the like. And we will have a

Years ago, Rivers Corbett made a major mistake as the owner of popular restaurant chain Relish Gourmet Burger that led to the demise of the company. In an effort to grow it, he jumped into a partnership with an investor that wasn’t a good fit.

“We should have done more due diligence instead of just getting excited about the money,” he reminisced. “A lot of emotions went with that as we tried

Spark Nova Scotia on Monday awarded $375,000 in prize money to nine companies located outside the metro Halifax area.

The organizers said 37 companies qualified for the competition, which aims to support startups based outside the province’s largest metro area. After training sessions were held in Bridgewater, Truro and Sydney, the field was narrowed to 19 finalists and then to nine winners, who

When Patrick Hennessey and his fellow Dalhousie mechanical engineering students presented their final project before graduation, they likely had no idea it would one day save a priceless Blue Jays championship ring.

But they developed their project into a company, Dartmouth-based Ring Rescue, and its technology has saved the World Series ring and others from swollen ring fingers.

Ring Rescue’s

A Halifax entrepreneur is relaunching two “zombie startups” in a bid to revitalize the stalled businesses.

John Leahy is the co-founder of Imagine That and Patient Intelligence. Both were created several years ago, but failed to gain traction.

Now, with new technology and more scalable business plans, Leahy sees an opportunity to make good on his original hopes for the companies.

“How we’re

One of the strongest developments in the Atlantic Canadian startup community in recent years is the development of the life sciences segment – both the biotech companies and the ecosystem that supports them.

Five years ago, these companies made up 16 percent of the companies we listed in our Entrevestor databank, but that proportion rose to 21 percent last year. And our research shows that the