Seeding Growth in the Third World

Philippe Levesque wants his farm-in-a-box to help feed the world’s hungry, but the New Brunswick-based botanist and horticulturist must first raise $10,000 so that he can produce 200 boxes to validate his idea in Canada.

For the last year, Levesque, 34, has been working alone on producing a self-contained gardening model to share with the world. His solution: wooden boxes containing seeds,

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Press Release: The Rounds’ Partners

Physician Associations and The Rounds Partner Up To Improve Healthcare For All Canadians

The Rounds Announces Partnership With The Society of Rural Physicians of Canada and The Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians

NOVA SCOTIA, Canada., June 3 -- The Rounds, the largest online community in Canada exclusive to physicians, and The Society of Rural Physicians of Canada (SRPC), the national voice of Canadian rural physicians, announced the first association partnership to improve the quality and efficiency of SRPC membership communication.

According to the SRPC, 31.4% of Canada’s

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Lamda Guard Signs Deal with Airbus

In a textbook case of a startup landing the perfect early adopter, Halifax-based Lamda Guard announced Wednesday that it has signed a deal with Airbus to jointly develop its technology to protect planes from laser attacks.

The world’s largest aircraft maker will cooperate with the Nova Scotian startup on the development of a transparent, flexible film that can go over the aircraft windshields

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Cirrus9-Cloud-A Merger to Aid Growth

Cirrus9, a Saint John-based managed cloud and data center operator, has acquired Cloud-A of Halifax, forming an nationally focused IT infrastructure and cloud services provider with operations in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Alberta.

The companies announced the transaction last night in a press release, but declined to reveal the financial details other than to say it was an all-stock deal. Cloud-A Co-Founder and CEO Brandon Kolybaba will remain with the merged group, becoming Vice-President and Chief Marketing Officer.

The Cirrus9-Cloud-A union will combine two companies on strong

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DC2GO’s Year 1 Sales Set to Top $1M

Last Friday was an important day for Andrew Coe and his company, DC2GO, which manufactures portable, customized data centres in Dartmouth. The company signed its first major sales contract.

But as he does every Friday, Coe drove out to the company’s prototype on a side road in Dartmouth’s Burnside Park.

Friday is the day when he runs its generator and makes sure all the components — the generator, cooling and security systems — are working smoothly.

But during conversation as he inspected the premises — really, a data centre built into a shipping container — he kept coming back to the

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Press Release: NBIF Research Chairs

Three Researchers Receive $3.5 Million To Work With Industry

New Brunswick Innovation Research Chairs Announced

The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation (NBIF) today established three new applied research chairs valued at $3,525,000 over five years. Areas of research include the commercialization of plant-based omega-3 fatty acids for food and pharmaceuticals; advanced cyber security threat detection, response and mitigation systems; and biomedical human prosthetic and augmentation devices.

They are:

Dr. Marc Surette - New Brunswick Innovation Research Chair in Biosciences

Dr. Erik

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NB Liberalizes SME Tax Credit

When Gerry Pond is asked how good New Brunswick’s new Small Business Investor Tax Credit is, he says it’s among the best provincial tax credit for startup investments in Canada.

The provincial government liberalized its tax credit this year to encourage more investment in young businesses, and to give a tax break to corporations investing in young companies.

“Some people say that the British Columbia credit is the best in North America, but I think ours is at least as good,” said Pond, the chairman of East Valley Ventures.

In his February budget, Finance Minister Blaine Higgs

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StartupNL-Corner Brook Meeting Set

StartupNL-Corner Brook, the latest pod for the Startup Newfoundland and Labrador group, will hold its inaugural meeting on Monday at 6 pm at the Navigate Entrepreneurship Centre in Corner Brook.

StartupNL  and the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Technical Industries have been working on the group for several months and are now moving ahead with the plans.

“We're looking for entrepreneurs and those that support entrepreneurs,” said StartupNL in a statement. “Brad Feld author of Startup Communities calls these leaders and feeders. We're hoping to identify a team of three or four

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Intelligence Report Highlights Funding

The most important trend in the Atlantic Canadian startup community last year was that provincial government agencies played a smaller role in financing startups than funds based outside the region and local private venture capital funds.

The June 2014 Entrevestor Intelligence Report, which we’re publishing here today, focuses on startup financing in the region, especially on equity financing for innovative young companies. Providing equity financing for these innovative young companies was until recently the domain of provincial agencies — the Nova Scotia Crown corporations Innovacorp

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Announcing the Startup Directory

We’re pleased today to unveil the first Atlantic Canada Startup Directory, sponsored by Launch36.

The directory is published today in the Spring 2014 Entrevestor Intelligence report, which is now on our site. Hard copies will be available next week, and will be available at the Atlantic Venture Forum. We’ll do our best to get copies out to groups in all four provinces.

The directory includes the coordinates for 159 startups, arranged in four main groups, IT, Life Sciences, Cleantech and Advanced Manufacturing. It also has a selection of service companies that are part of the community.

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