There’s a buzz about venture capital now that’s growing ever louder. The buzz is growing to impressive volumes nationally, but here in Atlantic Canada it’s reaching unprecedented decibel levels.

The numbers are starting to show the reason for optimism. As I wrote last month, 2011 should prove to be a record year for VC investment in the region, especially in Nova Scotia. But statistics can prove a one-time aberration, and the chatter among investors right now goes beyond big investments in or exits by a handful of companies.

What’s happening on a national level is fascinating because

The trophy case for Atlantic Canadian startups gained a positively cluttered look yesterday as GoInstant of Halifax and SimplyCast of Dartmouth both brought home some silverware.

GoInstant, which launched in September with $1.7 million in venture capital investment, was voted the most impressive company at 48 Hours in the Valley, a program that brings Canadian entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley for two days of instruction. Late in the second day, all participants were asked to vote on the best presentation via texts or twitter, and GoInstant won.

C100 – the group of Canadian expats in

The hottest new tech company on Prince Edward Island is disrupting the data asset management market – not to mention a few stereotypes.

DiscoveryGarden Inc. was created by a librarian, who then recruited a religious studies professor, and financed the company through a grant from the Atlantic Innovation Fund. Yet the data asset management company is turning heads, winning awards and compiling a prestigious client list.

“We met our aggressive sales targets in our first year and will double it this year,”’ said vice-president Joe Velaidum in an interview. The company has pioneered

Innovacorp has received 65 entries for its CleanTech Open competition, more than doubling the Nova Scotian innovation agency’s internal target of 30.

Innovacorp has said it wants to find the best cleantech entrepreneurs in the world and encourage them to set up businesses in the province, so the competition is open to people with great ideas and business plans anywhere.

Though most of the entrants were from Nova Scotia, the competition did succeed in drawing competitors from as far away as China. The final tally is 48 Canadian entries, about 80% of which came from Nova Scotia. There

As it prepares to host angel organizations from across Canada next October, the Halifax-based First Angel Network is taking a lead in improving the standards of angel investing in Canada.

Ross Finlay, a founding member and de facto executive director of the Maritime group, spent last week at the National Angel Capital Organization Summit in Ottawa, and he and his executive are already organizing the next NACO Summit, which will be held in Halifax Oct. 24-26, 2012.

Finlay is now the vice-chair of NACO, the umbrella group for angel organizations in Canada, and also the chair of its new

PropelICT, the New Brunswick accelerator, has announced it is now accepting applications for its first five-month course in Launch 36.

For full details, please take a look at Propel's announcement here.

PropelICT announced in October that it would aim to take 36 seed level companies (with a preference for those setting up in New Brunswick) through its program in the next three years.

 

A Halifax startup pioneering a device that measures breast density may find its market buttressed by a wave of legislation sweeping the United States.

Densitas is a seed-level company launched by Dalhousie Associate Professor Mohamed Abdolell and serial entrepreneur Tim Burke. It is now developing the Densitas automated breast density measurement system, which will generate real-time breast density measurements each time a woman receives a screening mammogram.

The system, which the team hopes will be on the market in two years, can help to determine the risk of breast cancer. Women with

Customer relationship management giant Salesforce.com  yesterday unveiled its first step in integrating Radian6’s social media monitoring capabilities into its own suite of CRM services.

The San Francisco company, which earlier this year bought Fredericton-based Radian6 for $371 million, released a statement saying the new application includes new features in social monitoring, insights, engagement, workflow and websites.

The new tools – many of them developed in New Brunswick -- help companies to market their brands by monitoring what people are saying about them on Facebook and

Bedford-based software company NewPace announced yesterday that it has secured two loans worth a total of $850,000 from Business Development Bank of Canada to develop and market its suite of services, which will soon include a new mobile telecom product.

The company, founded in 2009, said in a statement the funding supports the development and marketing of a new mobile software solution that NewPace will sell to global telecommunications operators. The software solution is based on the Rich Communications Suite (RCS-e) specifications, a newly adopted mobile global standard established by

Halifax-based Tether announced overnight that it has extended its award-winning app – which allows simple and affordable laptop connections through smartphones – to iPhones. 

Originally known as TetherBerry, Tether first released its product for BlackBerry in 2009 to end the frustration of being unable to find a WiFi hotspot when most needed. After a little more than two years, Tether now provides 500,000 Blackberry and Android users with a dependable Internet connection for their laptops and desktops, using their existing smartphone data plans.

“We're excited to help the legions of