Much venture capital funding in Atlantic Canada comes from government sources.  That can have its drawbacks, so the challenge is to attract more private-sector investment to bring badly needed diversity to the region, say some investors.

Brightspark Ventures believes diversity is vital to creating a more robust startup community in Atlantic Canada and throughout the country.

Run by managing

Metamaterial Technologies Inc., the Halifax company that makes artificial materials that can alter light, has closed an $8.3 million round of funding, led by Toronto-based venture capital fund Radar Capital Inc.

MTI company said that Radar Capital, investing in Atlantic Canada for the first time, accounted for almost half the funding round. The other backers were Innovacorp and angel investors,

A blockchain-based financial exchange launched last month, powered by technology developed in New Brunswick.

The company is Braveno (pronounced Bra-VEH-no), and its initial product is an exchange for trading Bitcoin (the so-called crypto-currency that can be traded directly between people) and Ethereum (which is a tool for smart contracts). Blockchain is an emerging digital platform being hailed

Chinova Bioworks has been accepted into the first cohort of a Silicon Valley food and agtech accelerator, during which it plans to prove it can produce its chitosan-based preservative at a large scale.

The Fredericton company, which was spun out of another Fredericton startup, Mycodev Group, has just begun the first cohort of the Terra in San Francisco. The accelerator is being organized by

Innovacorp is looking for a new President and CEO to take the helm of Nova Scotia’s innovation agency in the spring of 2018.

Current CEO Stephen Duff will complete his five-year term next March and is not seeking a second term. So the agency is looking for a new lead executive to guide the agency through a period of transformation.

Innovacorp is known primarily as an early stage venture capital

Cora Cole is moving on to the national Fundica Roadshow finals, where she will be pitching for a chance to win $1 million.

Cole is the Founder and CEO of Grey Lit Matters, a Halifax startup whose platform provides researchers with a targeted audience for research that has not yet been reviewed by peers. On Thursday, it beat out 10 competitors to win the top spot in the Fundica Roadshow stop in

After a career that has included devising an experiment for the space station and creating the first carbon-fibre hockey stick, Stephen Fitzgerald intends to boost the bionic knee brace produced by Spring Loaded Technology.

Fitzgerald recently took over from cofounder Bob Garrish as chief technology officer at the Dartmouth-based firm.

Fitzgerald comes aboard at a time of growth. Spring Loaded

When the organizers of Montreal’s International Aerospace Week wanted to showcase 11 global startups in the aerotech space this week, the group of presenters included three companies from Atlantic Canada.

Agile Sensor Technologies of St. John’s, Envenio of Fredericton and QRA Corp. of Halifax all presented Monday at the Aerospace Innovation Hub, attended by more than 100 international aerospace executives from around the world. The audience included reps from such blue-chip companies as Panasonic, Boeing, Rolls Royce and BAE Systems.

Starburst Accelerator, a global aerotech accelerator with

We hear about it all the time. It’s the curse of the modern office worker. We’re sitting ourselves to death.

So we see standing desks, treadmill desks and bike desks attempting to counteract the effects of sitting for hours on end. But a Dieppe, N.B.-based IT company has a different sort of solution, one that means you don’t even have to think about moving throughout the day since your desk will

The Fundica Roadshow has announced the 10 companies that will pitch at its event in Halifax on Thursday at the Innovacorp Enterprise Centre on Summer Street.

The event will feature startups from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec, which will all have a chance to move on to the national competition. Tickets for the event are available here. 

The Fundica Roadshow holds pitching events from