Atlantic Canada may seem an unlikely place to establish a marketing and PR agency with a focus on startups, but entrepreneurship is growing fast in this region and Allan Gates, partner at Bonfire Communications, sees an opportunity.

Saint John-based Gates said many entrepreneurs fail to grasp the importance of early-stage marketing.

 “Startups are usually launched by people with a

Bob Williamson, the organizer of Invest Atlantic, has almost finalized the list of 16 contestants to compete in PitchCamp next week.

Invest Atlantic will host PitchCamp the night before the main conference as a showcase for young companies in the area, and a chance for them to get feedback on their business models and pitches. It takes place 4:30 to 6:30 pm on Monday at the World Trade and Convention Centre in Halifax.

Williamson has named 12 contestants to the event, which allows each participant 60 seconds to deliver a pitch, after which they are critiqued by a panel of judges.

The

Highlighting the progress being made by local startups, Halifax e-commerce company Dash Hudson used the Startup Empire conference Tuesday to unveil a new feature that will make it easier for people to buy appealing clothes online.

Founder and CEO Thomas Rankin told the conference that Dash Hudson now allows subscribers to click on an Instagram photo of a model wearing clothes. The subscriber is instantly taken to an online store, where he or she can order the clothes on display.

 “It’s a simple experience that takes you from seeing a product you like to buying it and having it soon,”

Ever since Radian6 and GoInstant were sold to salesforce.com, there has been a lot of talk about the entrepreneurial ecosystem here in Atlantic Canada. How can we keep churning out great, innovative companies that attract world class companies to invest in or buy our companies, creating both wealth for the founders, their employees and investors and adding high paying jobs to our region? Cloning Marcel LeBrun or Jevon MacDonald is likely not an option so we need to figure out how to support our young companies from inception through their growth stages.

There are different types of

SimplyCast, the Dartmouth multi-channel martking company, has issued the following press release:

SimplyCast Announces $2.3 Million Marketing Automation Integration Fund

The fund enables organizations to integrate and automate their internal processes with the SimplyCast platform, while greatly reducing the cost of development.

Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, September 23, 2014 - SimplyCast.com, a global leader in multi-channel marketing Platform-as-a-Service solutions, is proud to announce the creation of the $2.3 million Marketing Automation Integration Fund which will give organizations

After a day of impressive presentations, the second-last session of the Startup Empire conference in Halifax on Tuesday made people sit up because it detailed the harsh realities of the holy grail of the startup world – the exit.

Jeff Thompson, founder of Fredericton-based UserEvents, and Daniel Debow, Senior VP at Salesforce and founder of several startups, captivated the audience with a frank discussion of what it’s really like to be taken over.  They’ve each exited a couple of companies. And their dialogue – moderated by Patrick Keefe of Build Ventures -- was rich with practical advice

Doubling its previous capacity, PropelICT has named 20 companies from around the region to its next cohort, which will take place in Moncton, Fredericton and Halifax over the next three month.

The regional accelerator program refers its new system of mentoring young startups as Propel 2.0, signaling how it is increasing its ambitions and its ability to mentor young companies. Since it began its Launch36 accelerator three years ago, it has never had more than 10 companies in a cohort, and the classroom sessions have usually been held in Moncton.  Most of the Launch36 cohorts were capped at

Sentinel Alert, a St. John’s start-up that is developing a wearable technology devoted to worker safety, has become the first company from Newfoundland and Labrador accepted into the prestigious Launch36 technology accelerator.

The company has spent about a year prototyping and validating technology that can tell large companies and/or governments when a lone worker — such as a lineman for an electricity company — has had an accident or is in jeopardy.

Co-founders Sarah Murphy and Jason Janes attended the Launch36 selection camp in Moncton earlier this month and were accepted into the

 “Product manager” is a difficult position to define let alone master. And to help people do both, ProductCamp is coming to Halifax next month.

ProductCamp is a loosely organized get-together in which product managers, marketing professionals and people interested in product management can meet up, find areas of common interest and mentor on another on best practices. ProductCamp Atlantic

Neurodyn, the Charlottetown startup working on treatments for neurological diseases,  has issued the following press release:

Positive Phase 1a outcome for Memogain

Neurodyn Life Sciences Inc. announced completion of its first-in-human clinical study, demonstrating Memogain’s potential benefits over existing Alzheimer’s drugs;

•             increased safety in the absence of significant side effects,

•             more potent cognitive enhancement.

The Phase IA clinical trial addressed safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics of intranasally delivered Memogain in healthy young