BioInnovation Challenge Semi-Finalists

Nova Scotia life sciences industry group BioNova has chosen eight semi-finalists for its annual BioInnovation Challenge to be held virtually this year, with $55,000 of funding and in-kind services up for grabs.

Now in its eleventh year, the pitching competition will be held during BioPort  Atlantic -- the annual conference for life sciences and biotech in Atlantic Canada -- between Nov. 2 and 5.

Continue Reading

COVE Joins International Consortium

A consortium of bluetech support organizations that includes Dartmouth’s COVE ocean technology hub has signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on research planning, technology commercialization and supply chain management.

Announced at the Digital Ocean Convention in Rostock, Germany, the deal includes three other organizations: Norway’s GCE Ocean Technology, Germany’s Subsea

Continue Reading

RENK Ups Modest Tree Stake

Augsburg, Germany-based RENK, a subsidiary of automotive giant Volkswagen Group, will expand its stake in Modest Tree as the Halifax maker of augmented reality software looks to expand its product offering.

Modest Tree’s software allows the use of extended reality (XR) – a blanket term for augmented reality, virtual reality and other technologies that immerse the user in a virtual world – that

Continue Reading

Davison Becomes Stash CEO

Fredericton-based Stash Energy, which builds energy storage technology for heat pumps, has announced its new CEO: Jamie Davison.

Founded in 2015, Stash uses heating registers -- systems that use opening and closing slats to control the movement of warm air -- to bank heat for later use, saving energy and preventing excess warmth from going to waste.

“Jamie has had an extensive experience that

Continue Reading

Angels Defy Pandemic As Funding Tops $100M

Canadian angel investors defied economic headwinds and fears from industry leaders to book $102.9 million worth of deals in 2020, a report by the National Angel Capital Organization with input from Entrevestor has found.

The Changing Landscape, this year’s edition of NACO’s annual report on angel investing, was authored by Colin Mason -- a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of

Continue Reading

Frenter Acquires Rentbridge

Halifax-based equipment rental marketplace Frenter has acquired Alberta’s Rentbridge and now its 15-year-old Founder and CEO Zach Laberge is working on a $450,000 pre-seed funding round.

Labege said in an interview his company paid for Rentbridge with equal measures of cash and stock, although he declined to name the price. Of the $450,000, Laberge said he has received soft commitments for

Continue Reading

LeBlanc To Chair Entrevestor Live

We’ve got great news: Nicole LeBlanc has kindly agreed to be the chair and host of Entrevestor Live, our virtual event taking place on Oct. 6.

Entrevestor Live will be a celebration of success in the Atlantic Canadian startup community, with some of the region’s best founders appearing with their investors to tell their stories. LeBlanc is the perfect person to host such an event because of her

Continue Reading

Founders Entering Political Fray

When Nova Scotia Premier-Elect Tim Houston’s campaign made news for his past in the business world, it was his time as a corporate consultant in The Bahamas that drew headlines. But it is the nearly two years he spent running software startup Znanja that typify a broader trend in Atlantic Canada’s innovation economy.

A roster of Atlantic innovation-driven entrepreneurs have been phasing between

Continue Reading

Skerry Joins SMU

Leah Skerry, whose career has ranged from co-founding the edtech startup Eyeread to training as a performance artist, will become the latest of three entrepreneurs-in-residence at Saint Mary's University. 

Skerry will work under the banner of SMU’s RBC Talent Hub, which was created in response to business students’ requests for more hands-on learning. Her job will involve giving lectures and

Continue Reading

Bluetech Funding Lags

Atlantic Canada’s ocean technology sector is growing faster than ever, but Entrevestor’s 2020 Startup Data Survey shows possible trouble ahead on the funding front.

Although just a few years old, the segment has already achieved a degree of international reach unusual in the Atlantic provinces. Companies from other countries often attend the CDL Oceans accelerator and participate in the Oceans

Continue Reading