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,

We’ve almost completed the list of speakers for Invest Atlantic, which will take place at the World Trade and Convention Centre in Halifax on Sept. 26. We believe we have a superb lineup for all the slots, but there are three plenary sessions that I want to draw your attention to right now.

This year’s Keynote Address will be moderated by Permjot Valia, a superangel from London who has been an active investor in Nova Scotia in recent years. Rather than a monologue it will be a discussion on the outlook of investing in the region, featuring two investors with ties to Atlantic Canada,

Yan Simard’s Zaptap didn’t make it to the final four companies in the pitching event at the Grow 2011 event in Vancouver this month, but that didn’t mean he was downcast.

Simard is the CEO of the Fredericton startup creating a great deal of buzz in the entrepreneur and investor community. Its software allows consumers to ``zap’’ a product label in a store with their smartphones, and immediately receive information on the product such as technical specifications, warranty information, etc. The retailer can use the database of scans to build up a demographic profile of the clientele

I’m thrilled to once again be involved in Invest Atlantic, the only pan-regional conference for investors and entrepreneurs in Atlantic Canada. As was the case last year, I have the pleasure – and it really is a pleasure – of lining up the speakers.
 
The keynote address this year will be a panel discussion on the future of Venture Capital in Atlantic Canada, which will be moderated by British superangel Permjot Valia, a familiar face in Nova Scotia. We’re close to announcing the other participants in this session, and they are an impressive group.
 
Kicking off our plenary sessions