A Champion of Our Booming IT Sector

Nova Scotia’s digital technologies industry is booming, but the workforce lacks diversity.

That’s something Ulrike Bahr-Gedalia, president and CEO of Digital Nova Scotia, is working to change.

Incorporated in 1989, it is a non-profit that strives to promote Nova Scotia’s $2.5-billion digital industry; this figure includes the $1.5-billion industry itself and $1 billion in spinoff benefits.

Continue Reading

Press Release: EOLIO’s New Partner

EOLIO, a Halifax company that helps people with their personal online branding, has issued the following press release:

Halifax Partnership and Local Start-up eOLIO Announce Partnership

HALIFAX, NS – January 22, 2015: The Halifax Partnership announced today a partnership with local start-up eOLIO, its first start-up partner and newest investor.

The Halifax Partnership works with more than 120 private and public sector leaders who are shaping the future of the economy through collaborations and connections that fuel business and economic growth. The Partnership’s Connector Program - a

Continue Reading

Matt’s Got Balls—And Great Margins

The greatest thing about Matt’s Got Balls is obviously the company’s name, but a close second may be its margins.

The Fredericton startupis the brainchild of Matt Vance, a University of New Brunswick engineering student with a blazing passion for golf. He has teamed up with his father, Kevin, and fellow student Josh Ogden to produce a business that retrieves golf balls from golf course water

Continue Reading

Mansa Capital Joins Accreon MBO

Accreon, one of the largest tech consultancies in Atlantic Canada, is restructuring its ownership and leadership through a leveraged management buyout involving the Boston-based private equity firm, Mansa Capital.

Fredericton-based Accreon, which specializes in information technology for the healthcare industry, issued a statement on Tuesday saying it is in the final stages of the buyout. It did not reveal the financial terms, nor say when the buyout will close.

The upshot of the restructuring is the company will now be led by a three-member management team, a smaller group than the

Continue Reading

After Pivot, Swapskis Is Now Vendeve

To reflect the evolution of its business model, Swapskis is changing its name to Vendeve.

The Halifax startup began last year with the mission of helping women barter their skills with one another, so they could build up resumés and networks and eventually charge real cash for their services. Last summer, Founder and CEO Katelyn Bourgoin realized a better way to generate revenue for the business would be to be a cash-based market place for women’s services.

So she and her four colleagues changed the business model to allow more cash-based transactions. But the fact that the word “swap”

Continue Reading

Press Release: SageCrowd in Boston

SageCrowd, a Halifax startup that develops online networks for personal improvement authors, has issued the following press release:

SAGECROWD BRINGS ITS LEARNING SCIENCES TO BOSTON’S LEARNLAUNCH EDTECH ENTREPRENEURSHIP CAMPUS

Halifax, January 21, 2015 – Today sageCrowd announced it has agreed to join Boston’s influential edtech incubator LearnLaunch. In the agreement sageCrowd will become an advisor to companies incubated through LearnLaunch and locate its US operations within the LearnLaunch Campus.

The agreement brings sageCrowd’s learning science and its focus on competency based

Continue Reading

2 New Products Driving Current Studios

Current Studios is enjoying its best quarter of business ever largely because of two digital games it’s developed.

One aids children’s health care, and the other ties in with new bedding on the market. If they have one common trait, it’s that they’re both a testament to the creativity of this Dartmouth company.

Current Studios began as Ad-Dispatch, a startup that specialized in augmented reality. That lets you view something through a camera on a portable device and see animated characters spring to life against a real-world backdrop.

As it grew to a 50-employee outfit, the company

Continue Reading

Diversity, Experience at Breakthru

Here are three adjectives to describe the 2015 cohort of the Breakthru startup competition in New Brunswick: diversified, experienced and keen.

Breakthru, the biennial competition organized by the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, held its bootcamp on Saturday, which is the one time during the half-year-plus process that all the participants get together in one place.

NBIF this year

Continue Reading

Qimple Accepted into 500 Startups

A month after revealing it’s attracted an impressive set of investors, Qimple has been accepted into one of the best-known accelerators in the world.

The Moncton online recruitment company is one of about 30 startups that will attend the coming cohort of 500 Startups in San Francisco.

Qimple CEO Yves Boudreau found out Monday that his company had been accepted, and he leaves Saturday to attend the 14-week program. He said it will be an experience that could alter the course of his company’s development.

 “I’m very level-headed in that I don’t get overly excited or down about things,

Continue Reading

Press Release: SimplyCast CRM

SimplyCast, the Dartmouth-based multi-channel marketing startup, has issued the following press release:

SimplyCast Introduces Free CRM Solution and Sales Pipeline Acceleration Tool

SimplyCast is launching its own powerful customer relationship management solution, SimplyCast CRM.

SimplyCast CRM enables businesses to track and manage customers and leads with detailed personal profiles that are dynamically updated based on interactions and behaviors.

SimplyCast CRM's sales pipeline tool accelerates the sales process using detailed tracking and highly targeted lead nurturing

Continue Reading