Smartpods has raised $750,000 in equity financing to help it battle one of society’s great health problems: sitting.

The Dieppe, N.B., company makes tables that have work areas that automatically rise, fall and move from side to side to get users off their butts.

Its technology controls the movement of the working space, and it is finding customers among corporations and government.

Having graduated in November from the Launch36 tech accelerator, the company late last month closed $250,000 in funding from BDC Venture Capital, part of the Business Development Bank of Canada, and

Continuing to gain momentum, Fundmetric of Halifax last week received a $150,000 convertible note from BDC Venture Capital.

The startup actually became the 100^th startup in Canada to receive convertible notes from the VC arm of the Business Development Bank of Canada after graduating from a Canadian accelerator. Fundmetric, which helps charities to organize and carry out their fundraising

To understand what to watch in the Atlantic Canadian startup community in 2015, take a look at Avigilon Corp.

It’s not an Atlantic Canadian company. It’s a maker of high-resolution surveillance systems based in Vancouver. But Avigilon is the type of company that the startup cognoscenti are trying to develop on the East Coast, which makes it an interesting starting point for our outlook for 2015.

Basically, the regional startup community will grow in 2015 as it has in recent years – with startup weekends, competitions, conferences, new student entrepreneurs and seed funding. There will

Happy 2015 to the Atlantic Canadian startup community. 

We hope all of you have had a relaxing and happy holiday season and are ready to do and witness incredible things in 2015. 

We're pumped about what lies ahead of us in 2015. Entrevestor will continue to chronicle the development of the East Coast startup community, starting with our outlook for 2015 today. While it focuses on a single Atlantic Canadian issue, the big change for Entrevestor in the next few months will be a broadening of our focus. We're going to start covering a few deals from across the country. We'll still be an

Our greatest hope today is that your holidays are happy and that your undertakings in 2015 will be fruitful and fun.

For many of us in the Atlantic Canadian startup family, 2014 was great year. The biggest achievement was probably PropelICT crushing its target for Launch36, but it was not alone. There was the $60 million funding by Verafin, and exits by UserEvents, Compilr, Newpace and G2

At the Enactus world championships in Beijing in October, Jonathan King and his team came tantalizingly close to once again bringing home the trophy as the world’s top social entrepreneurship program for university students.

King is the head of Enactus Memorial, the student-run organization at Memorial University of Newfoundland that runs projects to improve the standard of living and quality

Matthew Stenback and Adam Puddicombe returned to St. John’s this month from three months of intense mentorship at the FounderFuel accelerator with a new target market for their company Brownie Points.

The two former business students from Memorial University in Newfoundland were among the first Atlantic Canadians to attend the Montreal-based accelerator. During the intense course, they

Deloitte, one of the Big Four global accounting firms, has agreed to buy Fredericton-based tech consultancy SwiftRadius, marking the second time this year an accounting practice has bought an Atlantic Canadian tech company.

The companies did not reveal the value of the deal, only saying it will close in January. In May, Saint John-based Ambir Solutions, one of Atlantic Canada’s leading technology consultancies, said it would join EY Canada (formerly Ernest & Young) as part of its business consultancy division.

In a statement last week, Deloitte said the transaction will enhance its

Mark Brand, one of the leading social entrepreneurs in Vancouver, will be the keynote speaker at the Starting Point conference to be held at St. Mary’s University from Feb. 18 to 20.

The Starting Point conference is designed to bring together student entrepreneurs and educate them in fundraising, developing ideas, social entrepreneurship, and other facets of starting their own businesses. The organizers expect about 150 student entrepreneurs from across Canada.

The highlight of the three-day event will be a keynote address by Mark Brand to an audience of as many as 600 people.

Denis Kay has been a scientist for a long time, but he’s most thrilled by his current role working on a promising drug for Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s is an escalating problem in aging societies. It’s estimated that the worldwide annual market for Alzheimer’s drugs is already $3.8 billion, although the cost to society is far greater.

“Sometimes I can’t sleep at night because of my excitement over the drug and working for a small biotech venture,” said Kay, who is a founder and chief scientific officer of Charlottetown’s Neurodyn Life Sciences.

Kay is energized because Neurodyn’s