You tend to sit up and take notice when someone pitching an online music product says they’ve conducted their customer validation with a community that includes Janis Joplin’s former manager.

Becky Jefferson and Bill McEwen did just that at Startup Weekend Halifax this month when they pitched Backstage Sessions, a proposed website that would allow music fans to experience online get-togethers with bands.

The company is in its infancy. In fact, Jefferson and McEwen first met at Startup Weekend at Dalhousie University on Nov. 16-18. And they are still working out the finer points of their

Fredericton-based Atlantic Hydrogen Inc. will build its first industrial-scale facility at Emera’s Bayside electrical generating station near Saint John in a deal that includes an equity investment worth more than $5 million.

AHI released a statement on Wednesday saying that Halifax-based Emera, which is the parent of Nova Scotia Power Inc., has hired AHI to install a CarbonSaver system at the gas-fired Bayside plant – the first such facility aside from the prototype at AHI’s Fredericton headquarters. The company plans to begin construction in the spring of 2013.

AHI has spent 12 years

MedRunner, a Saint John company developing an electronic prescription product, may soon pioneer  a new product to improve patient safety in the delivery of medication at hospitals, clinics and other outlets.

The company, which started  about three years ago, already has a Software-as-a-Service product in the New Brunswick market that allows doctors to order drugs for patients through computers or devices, thus improving the accuracy and recording of prescriptions. While it pushes that project forward, the company is also looking at a second product that would provide a digital record of a

Like many journalists, I pay more attention to fundraising by startups than I should, but it’s hard not to sit up and take notice when we had a week like last week.

Four Atlantic Canadian startups announced that they raised a total of $10 million, the lion’s share coming from an $8 million investment in AioTV by a Chinese tech company. That’s a lot of money for one week.  And then this week the investment rose again when LeadSift said it raised $635,000 from OMERS Ventures and several angels.

Consider the funding of companies in the region two years ago. Data from Thomson Reuters show

It seemed appropriate that Equals6, the Halifax-based social network for students, should win a startup award in Boston on the same day that entrepreneurs gathered in downtown Halifax to unveil a national networking scheme for young enterprises.

The news of Equals6’s success came just before StartUp Canada unveiled its plan to link the entrepreneurial communities across the country through meetings, online tools and a campaign.

Equals6 CEO Andy Osburn said yesterday that his company, which helps students around the world connect with prospective employers, was voted the Hottest Startup

Halifax-based LeadSift, whose software finds sales leads for corporate customers, has attracted $500,000 in investment from OMERS Ventures and an additional $135,000 from a group of individuals, closing its first round of funding at $1.135 million.

In receiving investment from OMERS Ventures, LeadSift will receive the backing of the most active venture capital fund in Canada in the past year.  And the group of angels includes Jevon MacDonald and Gavin Uhma, the brains behind Halifax co-browsing company GoInstant, which exited for more than $70 million this summer.

Damien Steel, the

Novawise Inc., a Halifax startup developing customer relationship management software for pharmaceuticals and other regulated industries, has received investment from two pillars of the Saint John tech community with strong links to investor Gerry Pond.

Mariner, a diverse consulting and IT services company, and East Valley Ventures, a financing and support group for tech companies, said in a statement they would invest an undisclosed amount in Novawise. Pond, one of the most prominent tech investors I the country, is the Chairman of Mariner and a Co-Founder of East Valley Ventures.

Sackville, N.S.-based Boondoc has hired Can Stock Photo founder Duncan Enman as its chief technology officer, as the social network for physicians rounds out its team and prepares to launch a prototype early in January.

CEO Blair Ryan and COO Will Harris have been looking for a CTO since they got together last summer to form the company that will help Canadian doctors to exchange information and help each other cure patients.

“We’ve added a CTO, which is really exciting news not only because it allows us to move at warp speed but also because of who it is,” Ryan said.

When he was

Saint John-based Enovex hopes to form a partnership with a larger industrial gas company by late March 2013 to help commercialize its flagship compound that aids the production of oxygen for medical and industrial markets.

The company, whose investors include East Valley Venture’s Gerry Pond and GrowthWorks Atlantic, began as a cleantech company developing a material that would capture carbon emitted by coal-fired electricity generation. However, it pivoted late last year so that it is now commercializing a compound that helps to make the production of commercial oxygen more efficient.

The latest edition of Progress Magazine is on the stands and it includes my first-person account of going through THENEXTPHASE, the superb entrepreneurship course offered by Toon Nagtegaal and Shawn Carver.

Just a word of background: this was a unique story for us because Carol and I spent four days running Entrevestor through THENEXTPHASE program, learning about our customers' pain and working on strategy for the business. We emerged with what I think is an interesting story. But we also emerged with a stronger business and an understanding of both the potential and limitations of