Fresh from its astonishing success in 2011, the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation has kicked off 2012 by announcing a new competition – the R3 Innovation Challenge.

The new competition is aimed at established companies that have a commercially viable idea for a new product or service, but need to perform some R&D to validate or develop the scheme. It will award two New Brunswick-based companies $50,000 worth of research each. The money will be paid to a post-secondary institution or research organization, which will assign a researcher to collaborate on the idea.

“Innovation is

 Trite as it is to say it, 2011 was one sweet year for the Honibe brand.

I’m sure I’m not the first hack to use that corny line about the line of solid honey products produced by Island Abbey Foods Ltd. of Charlottetown. And given the growth of its business, I doubt I’ll be the last.

The company, which produces the world’s only products made of solidified honey, tripled its network of retail outlets in 2011, began work on its new plant in Charlottetown’s BioCommons, and expanded its product lines.

“Last year, we launched our first natural health product,” Island Abbey President John

 Tanya Shaw had to look it up when I asked how many scanning outlets Unique Solutions has now opened in malls in the U.S.

“Sorry,” she said over the phone Friday as she waited for the window to open. “The numbers are changing daily.”

Seconds later she delivered the update: the company has installed 22 mybestfit scanning booths in the U.S., of which 10 are fully operational and the remainder are installed and training staff.

“By the end of February we’re in 45 locations, and by the end of June we’ll be in 160,” said Shaw, the founder and CEO of the Dartmouth-based company. “That’s

Adfinitum, the St. John’s-based advertising data bank, closed a round of funding initially worth $750,000 late last month, and will use the money to expand its sales and development teams.

CEO Ed Clarke said in an interview today that the company, which has a database of 12.5 million advertisements from more than 50 countries, could increase  the size of the deal with a second close. The investors so far in this round include first-time investor GrowthWorks Atlantic, London-based angel Permjot Valia and several existing investors, including Clarke himself.

Clarke added that he will fly

In the group’s first investment ever in Prince Edward Island, members of the First Angel Network have committed to sink more than $250,000 into Zengo Inc., which has developed a seal to plug leaks in tanks carrying hazardous or contaminating materials.

With this financing, the pre-eminent group of private individual investors in the region will have invested in each of the Atlantic Canadian provinces.

Founded by former police officer Glenn Cox, Stratford, P.E.I.-based Zengo has designed and manufactured the RUPTUREseal, a patent-pending device that fits over a tear in an industrial tank

Serial entrepreneur Dan Martell next week will announce a new startup that will operate out of his hometown of Moncton.

Martell will launch Clarity.fm at a ceremony in Moncton late next week and reveal the details of the new company at that time.

We’ve been sworn to secrecy but can say that Clarity.fm will address the problem of linking advisers with entrepreneurs who need their advice. People in the startup business often have trouble finding experts who can provide the specific advice they need, and this new venture will help to address that pain point.

Martell has some

As youmay have noticed, we're now winding down for the holiday season and are officially in Yuletide loaf mode. We've posted our final joint column with Progress Magazine for 2011, and are now putting our feet up. It's been a great three months since we launched Entrevestor.com, and we're really looking forward to enhancing our offerings in 2012.

We will have one more story for you this year -- a tantalizing nugget on Dec. 28. And that will be it unti lwe resume the service on Jan. 4.

We really appreciate -- a total understatement -- the way the innovation community has responded to

Omers Ventures, the new venture fund set up by the Ontario municipal employees’ pension fund, has begun to reach out to entrepreneurs in Atlantic Canada, looking for small companies that want to get big – really big.

The Toronto VC fund received $200 million in capital this year and will gain additional funds in the future as it builds up its capital to become a major player in Canadian VC. It has begun to develop a network of contacts across the country and has designated one investment officer, Damien Steel, to cover the eastern provinces.

Having joined Omers in September, Steel is

 The Maritime tech community will celebrate the holiday season with the regular get-togethers Cybersocial in Moncton and Third Wednesday in Halifax.

In Moncton, the lead-in for the Cybersocial on Wednesday Dec. 14 is a mini-workshop titled  “Intro to Agile Development” at The Moncton Club, 115 Queen Street, from 3:30 to 5:00 pm.

This will be followed by the Cybersocial from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. The headline company this month is HealthConnect, a Moncton-based provider of outsource services to the pharmaceutical industry.

The Third Wednesday gathering on Wednesday Dec. 21 will feature tech