Maybe it’s not a coincidence that the lone Atlantic Canadian company named to the Canadian Innovation Exchange this year is from the smallest province.

Maybe – or should we say probably – it’s the result of a methodical, multi-year strategy to improve the startup ecosystem in Prince Edward Island.

The Toronto-based CIX said last week its 20 laureates for 2018 include Island Water Technologies,

Saint Mary’s University's Venture Grade Fund made its first investment this week, contributing $15,000 to Trip Ninja, a startup for travel-planning. The investment was announced on Tuesday, at Volta Labs’ new event space in the Maritime Centre in Halifax.

Venture Grade is a venture capital fund operated by SMU students and it has raised about $200,000 to date.

“It’s taken us about two years to

Beauceron Security, a Fredericton company that measures clients’ cybersecurity risks, has been named to the Cyber London accelerator program in the U.K.

Known as CyLon, the accelerator hosts cybersecurity startups from around the world, offering them £15,000 (C$25,600) in investment, work space in London and training sessions with international experts. Beauceron is one of nine participants in

Half of the small to medium-sized businesses in Atlantic Canada have trouble finding the employees they need, says a new study released by the Business Development Bank of Canada.

The national study found that half of the SME owners the bank surveyed in the region said they had trouble finding new employees. That means Atlantic Canada has the highest labour shortage in the country as the survey

The Memorial Centre for Entrepreneurship at Memorial University has a new Entrepreneur-in-Residence to encourage its students to pursue their ideas in the med-tech or health innovation sectors.

Mandy Woodland’s official title is Health Innovation Initiative Entrepreneur-in-Residence; a broad-sounding title to which she brings a broad range of experience.

Woodland previously worked for 10 years

Halifax-based Sona Nanotech is planning to have its share trading publicly within a month – but on the Canadian Securities Exchange rather than the TSX Venture exchange.

Last month, the company posted a notice on its website providing an update on its plan to merge with Halifax-based shell company Stockport Exploration as a means to attain a public listing. The merged company had been planning

Two Halifax companies have been accepted into an ocean-tech competition in Savannah, Ga., where they will compete for one of two US$100,000 prizes.

Ashored Innovations and Graphite Innovations and Technology will present at the eighth annual Ocean Exchange, an event run by a non-profit of the same name that seeks innovative solutions for the sustainability of our oceans. Ashored and GIT are two

Halifax-based Common Good Solutions, a consulting firm that fosters the social enterprise movement, is behind an expansion that sees its Social Enterprise Institute (SEI) partnering with the Australian Centre for Rural Entrepreneurship (ACRE) to deliver online training across that country.

The group says it’s another step toward positioning Nova Scotia as a pivotal link in the global social

Squiggle Park, the Halifax- and Toronto-based startup that helps teach children to read, has been accepted into the Rev accelerator, the sales-focused mentoring program offered at Kitchener, Ont.-based Communitech.

The company, which received funding in June from Indigo Books and Music CEO Heather Reisman, is one of six companies accepted into the most recent six-month cohort of the accelerator

During the Ocean Supercluster roadshow this summer, Matt Hebb made a throw-away statement that lingered with me, because it so elegantly described the role of startups in the Supercluster.

Hebb is CEO of the Supercluster, the four-province partnership that will spend $300 million to $360 million on marine innovation R&D over the next five years. He and his team are preparing to develop