Last week, I wrote that more institutional money is coming into Atlantic Canadian startups, which is good because the world of funding is changing.

That was the good news. But it is counterbalanced by some bad news, which is that too many Atlantic Canadian startups are failing to take advantage of these changes.

Here’s the worse news: there’s a strong belief that some startups are going to go out of business in the next year or two because they will not secure the millions of dollars that it takes to grow. Maybe it’s because of a problem with their business model or their technology,

We want to offer huge congratulations to Tim Houston, a member of the startup community who was elected to the Nova Scotia legislature last night.

Running for the Progressive Conservatives, Houston won the Pictou East seat in last night’s provincial election, and will be a member of the official Opposition to the new Liberal government.

Houston is a Co-Founder of the New Glasgow-based startup, Znanja (pronounced  NAN-ja), whose technology makes it easy to convert existing training materials to SCORM compliant online eLearning material. Online eLearning requires users to access training

We’ve been getting requests to remind the startup community that deadlines are approaching for some high profile competitions, and people should get their names in. With luck, they’ll be as successful as Mindful Scientific has been in a recent national competition in the U.S.

The deadline for Innovacorp’s I-3 competition in Nova Scotia is Friday, Oct. 18, and the provincial agency wants entrepreneurs, whether they have a successful business or just a good idea, to enter. “People can enter with an idea, prototype or even be in business with cumulative sales to date of less than $3

When Charles Benaiah visited Dalhousie University to tell students about his experience founding and selling a startup in New York, he didn’t expect he’d soon be planning to establish his development team in Halifax.

But Benaiah, who received his MBA at Dal in 1993, was so impressed with his alma mater and the Atlantic Canadian startup community that he is working on a plan to build up a Halifax presence for his new company, watzan.

Now headquartered in New York, watzan is a “big data” visualization tool that makes it easier for companies to show clients the products they may be most

A group of seasoned investors and entrepreneurs will launch a new angel investment group in Halifax today with a pledge that they will not charge companies any fees to pitch to the group.

Having already attracted about 30 investors, Atlantic Angels will hold its first meeting this month and has identified several companies that could win investment from the members. The group is now being led by a loose steering committee and the key organizers include Volta Executive Director Milan Vrekic and Permjot Valia, the London-based founder of MentorCamp.

The thinking behind Atlantic Angels is

Money and how to obtain it will be one of the themes of this year’s BioPort Atlantic Conference, which will take place at Halifax’s Westin Nova Scotian hotel on October 9 and 10.

“Putting more focus on money reflects what we’re hearing from our members,” said Marli MacNeil, CEO of BioNova, the group behind the annual conference. “We’ve just finished a major survey of the industry and a look through the questionnaires reveals that pretty much everyone’s number one challenge is accessing money, whether it’s attracting investment or funding for research.”

BioPort Atlantic is the premier

As part of the province’s innovation strategy, the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation last week launched a new graduate and doctoral scholarship initiative mainly aimed at students in the sciences.

The provincial innovation agency is administering the new scholarship in a bid to attract and retain talent to the province, and help provide the human resources needed to grow the innovation and startup community.

The scholarships range between $4,000 and $21,000 each for students studying science, technology, engineering, mathematics or social innovation. The New Brunswick Department of

Grey Island Energy, a St. John’s, N.L., clean tech company, is on a mission to raise $750,000 to finance a series of tests to validate its wave energy technology.

The company, which operates out of the Genesis Centre at Memorial University of Newfoundland, is developing SeaWEED, a device that produces electricity using the motion of ocean waves.

“We’re developing a device that is elegant in its simplicity and that can be built in any shipyard,” said chief operating officer Daniel Hoyles, speaking last week in Halifax at the PitchCamp event, which the company won.

Environmental

Introhive Inc. has raised its current round of funding to about $5 million with a strategic investment from Salesforce.com of San Francisco.

The Fredericton- and Washington, D.C.-based startup said in a statement Wednesday that Salesforce had joined the round that included investments from Build Ventures, CIT GAP, Fortify VC, GrowthWorks Atlantic and the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation.

Though the statement did not reveal the value of the funding round, an Introhive spokesman said it is now worth about $5 million.

Introhive helps large corporations to avoid having to make cold

Smart Skin Technologies of Fredericton has unveiled a new application for its pressure-sensitive material that is already finding traction with a few global food and drink producers.

The company has developed technology called Quantifeel, which detects pressure on surfaces and produces real-time graphics on devices or computers showing where pressure is being exerted. The latest application for the technology is testing cans and other packaging in the food and beverage industry.

Chief executive officer Kumaran Thillainadarajah explained that food and drink companies with huge production