Happy Canada Day, everyone. We hope all our readers have had a safe and happy weekend celebrating the country’s 146^th birthday.

Of course, July 1 is also the first day of the second half of the corporate calendar, and a good time to look back at what’s happened in the East Coast Startup Community in the first half. What’s been especially impressive is that the community has made so many strides on so many fronts in just six months.

The biggest news is probably that there is now a network of co-working and incubation centres around the region where virtually nothing existed before. Volta

Progress Magazine this month has published my article on the search for and development of talent for Big Data in Atlantic Canada.

This article grew out of discussions at the Big Data Congress in Saint John in January, at which speakers highlighted the many skills needed to develop data analytics solutions. Finding an individual with all these traits can be a challenge.

Later in the week, I will follow this up with a look at one university is doing to improve research and education in the field of Big Data.

Bedford-based NewPace Technology Development Inc. has signed six-figure sales agreements with Nokia Corporation of Finland and an unnamed European company, accelerating the traction of its Rich Communications Service, or RCS, mobile phone products.

NewPace has spent years developing a suite of RCS products, which increase the flexibility that companies can offer in texting services on mobile handsets. It means texts can be used for chat, group chat, file transfer, video and voice calling across networks and using any smartphone. The goal of this initiative is to upgrade the current

PropelICT, the technology development organization that oversees the Launch36 accelerator, plans to expand into Newfoundland and Labrador within 18 months, and wants to support the growth of larger tech companies across the region.

The Moncton-based organization held its annual general meeting last night and outlined its expansion plans after 18 months that exceeded expectations. Propel ICT began Launch36 as a regional accelerator early in 2012 and so far it has graduated 18 companies that it says employ more than 70 people and have raised more than $7 million in equity financing.

Just

Medusa Medical Technologies Inc. has attracted $900,000 in equity investment from three investors, a sum that will be added to its Atlantic Innovation Fund financing to help develop the next generation of its technology.

Last week, the Halifax company, whose technology allows paramedics to report data electronically to hospitals or health centres, received a $2.6-million loan from the innovation fund, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency’s vehicle for funding major research projects.

Medusa chairman Glen Dexter said after the announcement that the company has also raised $300,000

Fresh on the heels of launching on Salesforce, Introhive Inc. has landed $1.5 million in funding from Build Ventures that will be used to enhance the product and attract new customers.

The Fredericton- and Washington, D.C.-based startup just six months ago raised $1.8 million from GrowthWorks Atlantic, the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation and a range of angels.

Introhive helps large corporations to avoid having to make cold calls – especially for sales but in developing other relationships as well – by determining who in the company already has a strong relationship with an

A new incubator for mobile telecom companies will open in the former York County Courtroom on Queen Street in Fredericton in September, meaning the New Brunswick Capital will soon be home to two co-working spaces for startups.

Gary Stairs, the CEO of Stellar Learning Strategies and Red Hot Learning Co. and driving force behind the incubator, said in an interview that mLab Canada will open Sept. 1 to offer work space to about eight startups at a time. He said the centre will likely take in two cohorts per year, with the aim of eventually having full cohorts of companies engaged in mobile

Bill Cheliak doesn’t believe the world needs a new, amazing antibiotic to kill superbugs — lethal strains of pathogens that are resistant to antibiotics. It simply needs ways to make antibiotics more effective. And he believes his company, Chelation Partners Inc. of Halifax, has found how to do it.

Chelation is working on a product that can be combined with existing or new antibiotics so that superbugs (or other drug-resistant microbial populations) are no longer resistant to them. Chelation’s drug deprives the bacteria of iron, and that weakens the micro-organism so the antibiotic can do

Kevin Sullivan’s move to Nova Scotia is part of a healthy development in Atlantic Canada’s life sciences sector. Having lived in the province when he was younger, Sullivan spent 10 years in London, Ont., working for a biotech start-up called Viron Therapeutics Inc., which was developing a cardiovascular drug.

Last summer, Sullivan was visiting the family cottage near Windsor, N.S., when he heard about Don Weaver, a Halifax medical doctor who was involved in several start-ups. Sullivan ended up becoming the CEO at one of those companies, DeNovaMed, which is developing new compounds that

Deloitte has agreed to pay $250,000 in prize money in the next five years in Canada’s Business Model Competition, a program being organized by Norman Newman  Centre for Entrepreneurship at Dalhousie University’s Rowe School of Business.

The accountancy contributed $40,000 earlier this year for the first event, in which two teams of students from Dalhousie progressed on to the International Business Model Competition held at Harvard University. It has now provided the funding to expand the competition and make it a truly national event.  

In presenting the cheque to Dalhousie on Friday,