ClearRisk Inc., the St. John’s SAAS venture that helps mid-level insurance brokers assess risk, is celebrating its fifth anniversary this month by launching a mobile app.

The company led by Craig Rowe got a major boost this year when GrowthWorks Atlantic and the First Angel Network teamed up to back it with $1.2 million, now it is expanding its versatility by allowing clients to use its services on mobile phones and devices.

"We’re launching our first mobile app this week,’’ CEO and founder Rowe said in an interview at Invest Atlantic on Monday. "Our software is built and priced for the

Daniel Boyd and ABK Biomedical yesterday won the $30,000 BioInnovation Challenge presented by BioNova for its development of OccluRad particles in the treatment of fibroid tumors.

BioNova, the umbrella group for the Nova Scotian biotech industry, initiated the BioInnovation Challenge this year in conjunction with the BioPort 2011 conference to encourage commercialization of research at the province’s universities.

ABK Biomedical is commercializing a method to improve recent innovations in the treatment of benign tumors in women by making the process simpler, safer and cheaper.

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Thomas Rankin of Innovacorp has won national recognition for his work in the cleantech industry, including organizing Canada’s first global competition for cleantech entrepreneurs.

Rankin is in Toronto this week to attend the Clean50 Summit, where he has been named one of the 2012 Clean50, which recognizes 50 Canadians who have helped to develop the sustainable economy.  One of Rankin’s initiatives is the CleanTech Open contest, which is open to entrepreneurs around the world as long as the winner establishes a business in Nova Scotia.

Rankin explained earlier this week that Nova Scotia

The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation revealed today that it earned $9.2 million from its Radian6 investment, but the really interesting news was in the final paragraph of the media release.

The not-for-profit organization that finances research and early stage companies said all – every last nickel – of the proceeds will go back into the fund and be used for further funding of academic research and startups.

``As a non-profit corporation, all of the investment return will be used to further the Foundation’s mandate through by replenishing its Venture Capital Fund,’’ said the

Resolution Optics, a Halifax maker of sophisticated microscopes, has hired Sandra Wood as its CEO, building on the trend of experienced business people collaborating with university researchers to commercialize a product.

Wood was most recently an account manager at the Greater Halifax Partnership and was previously a sales representative in the pharmaceutical field.  She will enhance the business team of a company formed by two Dalhousie University professors, Manfred Jericho and H. Juergen Kreuzer.

The company, which operates out of Innovacorp’s BioScience Enterprise Centre in

 Fredericton-based Inversa Systems, which makes scanning technology for the construction industry, has raised $500,000 from the New Brunswick Innovation Fund and private venture capital firm, Technology Venture Corp. of Moncton.  

The four-year-old company, which was spun out of the Laboratory for Threat Material Detection at the University of New Brunswick, manufactures inspection equipment that allows engineers to see inside large structures without taking them apart. It will use the proceeds to release a previously announced $2.1 million funding from Acoa’s Atlantic Innovation Fund.

Invest Atlantic concluded yesterday with a reasoned plea to allow the coming Regional Venture Capital Fund to make investments beyond the borders of Atlantic Canada.

The fund, being championed by Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, will have a better chance of raising capital, rewarding its backers and supporting Atlantic Canadian companies if it invests in other markets as well as the four eastern provinces, experts said.

``Putting handcuffs on the management team to look only at opportunities in the Atlantic Region would in my mind be a mistake,’’ said Dominique Bélanger, Director,

In just two years, Invest Atlantic has established itself as a leading forum for an outward-looking and cooperative business policy in Atlantic Canada.

Though conference attendance is down across the country, Invest Atlantic in its sophomore year increased paid attendance to 165 and quadrupled its attendance from Newfoundland and Labrador.

Gerry Pond, the Saint John-based chairman of the event, made an impassioned plea for the provinces to work together in attracting investment into information technology and other innovative sectors. He recited his plea for six cities (Saint John,

Editor’s note: We’ve received a lot of emails in the week since we launched, but we wanted to post this one from Orville B. Pulsiver of Grapell Bioenergy. This note spoke to us because it highlights the importance of marrying innovation with traditional resource-based industries. It’s a theme we hope to revisit frequently. P&C.

 

Hello Peter & Carol,

Your article in today's Sunday Chronicle Herald (p A-12) awakened my interest in what you are trying to do and its importance.

In 1994 I inherited a farm in Middle Musquodoboit, just one of more than 2,000 smaller farms across N.S

On Friday night, I found myself wishing I’d attended the Moncton CyberSocial’s Angel Den in July. 

I was sitting in the packed auditorium at the Dalhousie University Computer Sciences Building enjoying the ten pitches at DemoCamp Halifax, arranged by Milan Vrekic and Tony Abou-Assaleh of TitanFile.  The program alternated between the presentations by developing companies and sage advice from seasoned veterans like Tim Burke of Tether and Brent Newsome of NewPace.  The proceeds from the evening were donated to Dalhousie’s Women in Technology Society.

The Angel Den in Moncton – which I