Smart Skin’s New Packaging Product

Smart Skin Technologies of Fredericton has unveiled a new application for its pressure-sensitive material that is already finding traction with a few global food and drink producers.

The company has developed technology called Quantifeel, which detects pressure on surfaces and produces real-time graphics on devices or computers showing where pressure is being exerted. The latest application for the technology is testing cans and other packaging in the food and beverage industry.

Chief executive officer Kumaran Thillainadarajah explained that food and drink companies with huge production

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SageCrowd Launches with Goldsmith

A personal help guru from San Diego tomorrow is going to use a speech in Montenegro to launch a new service on a platform developed by a Halifax tech company.

During the speech in the Balkan country, Marshall Goldsmith, the author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There and other books whose sales have totaled millions of copies, will officially launch sageCrowd, which the Halifax company of the same name has been working on for more than a year.

SageCrowd is an online learning network that will deepen the relationship between some of the world’s leading personal improvement authors

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Red Meat to Launch Steam and Steel

In a rather tidy and peaceful incubator in St. John’s, N.L, Keith Makse and Christo Stassis are hard at work, creating a world being overrun with a desert plague, certain destruction and Victorian morals.

The duo are the principals of Red Meat Games, the latest member of the Genesis Centre at Memorial University of Newfoundland. And having successfully raised money through a crowdfunding campaign, they are preparing to release their first game, Steam and Steel, which they hope to have on the market by Halloween.

What awaits the eager gamer in this new offering? The best answer is

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Changes in the Funding Landscape

As STI Technologies Ltd. was putting the final touches on its $17 million financing last week, investors and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley were busily discussing a new funding feature on the funding website AngelList.

These two news items from different ends of the continent are peripherally related to each other at best, but they are both threads in a trend that’s taking place:  Startup funding in Atlantic Canada is definitely moving in the right direction, and it’s happening as the international landscape for funding companies is changing. And the new landscape poses both

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Launching 48 Hours in the Hub

When the inaugural 48 Hours in the Hub kicked off in Boston last night, the official list of 25 participants included four startups from Atlantic Canada.

Canadian Entrepreneurs in New England, a network of Canuck expats in the Boston area, is holding the event that runs through tomorrow as an east coast counterpart to 48 Hours in the Valley, operated by C100 in Silicon Valley. (Coincidentally, C100 UK held its 48 Hours in London event late last week, though there were no Atlantic Canadian participants.)

The 48 Hours in the Hub event is intended to be an intense two-day session that can

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The Jew Who Defeated Hitler

This is a special week for me, largely because of a project that has little to do with Entrevestor.

Many of you already know that I’m working on a book called The Jew Who Defeated Hitler, which is the story of Henry Morgenthau, Jr.’s role in defeating Nazi Germany. I’m flying to New York today to attend a private screening of “Good Fortune – The Story of Morgenthau”, a full-length documentary on the Morgenthau family and their contributions to the United States.

Director Max Lewkowicz interviewed me for the film last year and tonight I’ll find out how much of that interview made the

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Hackathon Produces Commuter Apps

Two new initiatives have emerged from a weekend competition this month in the Halifax startup community that could soon be helping commuters and drivers in the city.

It would be premature to call KNOWtime and Vallet.me businesses because these groups have only been working on their projects for less than two weeks. Let’s call them teams that are interested in continuing with their projects and possibly to turn them into commercial ventures that would help Haligonians.

A few weeks ago, we reported that the Volta co-working space would host a hackathon, at which 140 tech enthusiasts would

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Imperial’s STI Deal Buys Out Backers

Toronto-based private equity firm Imperial Capital agreed Wednesday to invest $17 million in Halifax pharmaceutical services company STI Technologies Ltd., which includes the buyout of several existing investors, such as venture capital company GrowthWorks Atlantic.

Steve Nicolle, CEO of the Halifax company, opened a pre-arranged speech at the Invest Atlantic conference by flashing the press release announcing the deal, which will help to finance the company’s expansion.

Though he declined to provide details, Nicolle said a “healthy amount” of the $17 million funding will remain with

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Notable Quotes from Invest Atlantic

Here is a selection of notable quotes from the Invest Atlantic conference yesterday. Apologies to those in the afternoon sessions, which I had to miss.

“I have a deeply held belief that you should live where you choose and build your life and your business there. If you’re excited about living in Halifax, you will have a more fulfilling life there, and your business will probably be more successful.”

Brad Feld, author, Startup Communities

 

“It’s not about the exit for me. It’s about: we need to change the culture in Atlantic Canada.”

Trevor MacAusland, Executive Director,

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Grey Island Wins PitchCamp

Grey Island Energy, a St. John’s-based cleantech company, was the run-away winner of the PitchCamp competition that opened Invest Atlantic  on Tuesday.

CEO Daniel Hoyles explained in his one-minute pitch that his company is developing a device that produces electricity using the motion of waves, which could power coastal towns or oil rigs at half the cost of diesel-powered electricity.

“We’re developing a device that is elegant in its simplicity and that can be built in any shipyard,” said Hoyles, whose company operates out of the Genesis Centre at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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