Cirrus9, a Saint John-based managed cloud and data center operator, has acquired Cloud-A of Halifax, forming an nationally focused IT infrastructure and cloud services provider with operations in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Alberta.

The companies announced the transaction last night in a press release, but declined to reveal the financial details other than to say it was an all-stock deal. Cloud-A Co-Founder and CEO Brandon Kolybaba will remain with the merged group, becoming Vice-President and Chief Marketing Officer.

The Cirrus9-Cloud-A union will combine two companies on strong

Last Friday was an important day for Andrew Coe and his company, DC2GO, which manufactures portable, customized data centres in Dartmouth. The company signed its first major sales contract.

But as he does every Friday, Coe drove out to the company’s prototype on a side road in Dartmouth’s Burnside Park.

Friday is the day when he runs its generator and makes sure all the components — the generator, cooling and security systems — are working smoothly.

But during conversation as he inspected the premises — really, a data centre built into a shipping container — he kept coming back to the

Three Researchers Receive $3.5 Million To Work With Industry

New Brunswick Innovation Research Chairs Announced

The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation (NBIF) today established three new applied research chairs valued at $3,525,000 over five years. Areas of research include the commercialization of plant-based omega-3 fatty acids for food and pharmaceuticals; advanced cyber security threat detection, response and mitigation systems; and biomedical human prosthetic and augmentation devices.

They are:

Dr. Marc Surette - New Brunswick Innovation Research Chair in Biosciences

Dr. Erik

When Gerry Pond is asked how good New Brunswick’s new Small Business Investor Tax Credit is, he says it’s among the best provincial tax credit for startup investments in Canada.

The provincial government liberalized its tax credit this year to encourage more investment in young businesses, and to give a tax break to corporations investing in young companies.

“Some people say that the British Columbia credit is the best in North America, but I think ours is at least as good,” said Pond, the chairman of East Valley Ventures.

In his February budget, Finance Minister Blaine Higgs

StartupNL-Corner Brook, the latest pod for the Startup Newfoundland and Labrador group, will hold its inaugural meeting on Monday at 6 pm at the Navigate Entrepreneurship Centre in Corner Brook.

StartupNL  and the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Technical Industries have been working on the group for several months and are now moving ahead with the plans.

“We're looking for entrepreneurs and those that support entrepreneurs,” said StartupNL in a statement. “Brad Feld author of Startup Communities calls these leaders and feeders. We're hoping to identify a team of three or four

The most important trend in the Atlantic Canadian startup community last year was that provincial government agencies played a smaller role in financing startups than funds based outside the region and local private venture capital funds.

The June 2014 Entrevestor Intelligence Report, which we’re publishing here today, focuses on startup financing in the region, especially on equity financing for innovative young companies. Providing equity financing for these innovative young companies was until recently the domain of provincial agencies — the Nova Scotia Crown corporations Innovacorp

We’re pleased today to unveil the first Atlantic Canada Startup Directory, sponsored by Launch36.

The directory is published today in the Spring 2014 Entrevestor Intelligence report, which is now on our site. Hard copies will be available next week, and will be available at the Atlantic Venture Forum. We’ll do our best to get copies out to groups in all four provinces.

The directory includes the coordinates for 159 startups, arranged in four main groups, IT, Life Sciences, Cleantech and Advanced Manufacturing. It also has a selection of service companies that are part of the community.

Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil yesterday unveiled an economic planning panel that is rich with talent from the startup community.

The 17-member panel, to be chaired by the premier, will take a year and a half to devise a 10-year economic plan in keeping with the report of the recent Ivany Commission on the Nova Scotian economy. The panel is being greeted with some skepticism, but there are a few things I really like about it.

First, it’s remarkably similar in structure to Premier David Alward’s New Brunswick Research and Innovation Council, announced last year. Both bodies include

SimplyCast in Partnership with Saint Mary's University Executive and Professional Development to Launch Leadership Training Course

SimplyCast is looking to create leaders among its team by offering comprehensive communication and management training.

The Saint Mary's program, designed by instructor Brenda Fair, develops communication skills and strategies through team building exercises and ongoing communication challenges.

Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, May 28, 2014 - SimplyCast.com, a global leader in multi-channel marketing Platform-as-a-Service solutions, today announced that the company

Ambir Solutions, one of Atlantic Canada’s leading technology consultancies, has agreed to join EY Canada (formerly Ernest & Young) as part of its business consultancy division.

The Saint John-based service company, which has offices in Halifax, Fredericton and St. John’s,  said in a statement it had signed a letter of intent to join EY. The organization’s 60 employees will all be joining the international firm.

“We decided last year that we were going to embark on a growth strategy, only we envisioned it would be as independent company,” said Ambir CEO Ian Cavanagh in an interview