The tech media in San Francisco was abuzz last night with the launch of GoInstant, the latest venture of Jevon MacDonald, until recently the entrepreneur-in-residence at Innovacorp in Halifax.

Forbes, PC Magazine, TechCrunch, ZDnet and CNet all reported on the launch of the Halifax-based venture at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in Silicon Valley.

MacDonald, a PEI native who came to Halifax by way of Austin, Texas, amicably left the one-year post at Innovacorp earlier this year and has been known to be working on his next venture with a group of collaborators. GoInstant’s technology

Smart Skin is the gift that keeps on giving to Kumaran Thillainadarajah.

A few years ago, the Fredericton resident developed a thin pressure-sensitive material that could relay information when someone pressed any specific place on the surface. He began to explore practical applications for the technology, such as applying it to artificial limbs so amputees could feel pressure on their prosthetics. However, the development process was long and expensive.

Finally he hit on the right application and in November, 2009, Smart Skin Technologies was born. The company’s main objective is to

I'm pleased to say I signed up yesterday for DemoCamp Halifax 2011, a one-evening event hosted by file-sharing company TitanFile. The DemoCamp will take place Friday, Sept. 23 from 5-8:30 pm at the Dalhousie University Computer Science Building.

The DemoCamp boasts an excellent array of speakers, including TitanFile CEO Milan Vrekic. Other speakers include: Compilr CEO Patrick Hankinson; Tether CEO Tim Burke; GoInstant boss Jevon MacDonald; Monica Goyal, co-founderof MyLegalBriefcase.com; noted startup lawyer Christian Weisenburger of Beyond the Box Law; NewPace CEO Brent Newsome; and

Some interesting data flowed from Business Development Bank of Canada late last week, which shows that Atlantic Canadians are less entrepreneurial than most other parts of Canada, but we’re generally running with the herd.

The problem is, we need entrepreneurship more than other parts of the country, so we should be near the top.

In a report titled ``Canadian Entrepreneurship Status 2010’’, the federal business generation agency said that 8.8% of Atlantic Canadians intend to start a business. That’s about half of the 17% in Alberta and BC, but within striking distance of the roughly 11%

Scott Walton has a long journey in front of him – geographically, financially and likely in other ways. But he’s well under way.

Walton, the 24-year-old founder and CEO of the Saint John carbon capture enterprise Enovex Corp., will leave Monday for an eight-week road show that will take him to Colorado, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Calgary, New York City, Banff and Toronto in search of capital and customers. He will attend the Modern Energy Forum in Denver, and is one of 10 Canadian cleantech companies invited to the Northern CleanTech Showcase in Beijing and Shanghai.

He’s got an

A roundup of news on the Atlantic Canadian startup community:

-- KnowCharge Inc. of Saint John announced its first round of funding: $438,000 from the First Angel Network and $200,000 from the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation.

-- New Brunswick Information Technology Council CEO Larry Sampson's ode to productivity. And his warning that New Brunswick is lagging in the gaming industry.

-- Bio Food Tech of Charlottetown changes its name.

 

 

 

Now that it’s secured $500,000 in funding, Marcato Digital Solutions, Inc. is setting its sights on a $2 million fundraising to finance the international roll-out of its administration system for musicians and music festivals.

``We’re pretty much positioned now to engage in some really serious ass-kicking,’’ Darren Gallop, the CEO and co-founder of the Sydney, NS-based company, said in an interview late last month. ``We’ve signed up four clients in the last two weeks alone that we’re really excited about.’’

For at least a year, there’s been a feeling of excitement surrounding Marcato.

Twenty-three?

I asked the question aloud, and Patrick Hankinson blushed and nodded. At only 23, the Halifax-based serial-entrepreneur has been involved in three startups, two of which are profitable, and just won an international competition for startups.

And this weekend the soft-spoken Hankinson is flying to London to attend Seedcamp, an international conference for startups that includes day-long sessions in product development, marketing and fund-raising.

He won this trip to Seedcamp because his latest venture, Compilr, was judged one of the top four startups at the Mini-Seedcamp

An intriguing round of follow-on funding for Halifax consumer health products maker Origin BioMed headlines a bargeful of news in the startup space today.

Origin announced yesterday it has landed $2 million in funding -- $850,000 from Nova Scotia Business Inc., $650,000 from Avrio Ventures of Calgary and $500,000 from GrowthWorks Atlantic . This builds on the total of $4.5 million that the three VCs have sunk into Origin already in the past year.

Origin manufactures natural pain relief for diabetes sufferers and the funding shows this company – which is a real veteran of the startup

File-sharing enterprise TitanFile Inc. of Halifax on Tuesday secured $250,000 in equity financing from Innovacorp., valuing the company that started last year at more than $2.5 million.

For TitanFile, the all-common-stock funding will add to the buzz for a young company that can already boast success in recent competitions and an impressive revenue stream. For Innovacorp, the second funding announcement this month shows Nova Scotia’s government owned technology commercialization agency is building up momentum in its funding of startups.

Founded by Milan Vrekic and Tony Abou-Assaleh,