The federal government’s announcement Thursday of $1.2 million in loans for four Halifax-area tech companies highlighted the benefits of both debt and equity financing from public and private sectors for the region’s startups.

As other news outlets have reported, Bernard Valcourt, the Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, was in Dartmouth to announce loans to Ad-Dispatch.com Inc., NovaWise Inc., B4Checkin Limited and 2nd Act Innovations Inc.

What I thought was interesting is that three of the companies had raised equity financing recently and a fourth was

BoomersWork, a Halifax company that matches retired executives with projects for businesses or organizations, is developing a pricing model for startups to allow young companies to benefit from the experience of seasoned corporate vets.

The company launched this spring and now has a client list of 150 executives beyond their fiftieth birthday who want to keep busy by taking on projects for companies, governments, or not-for-profit organizations.

“BoomersWork is an eHarmony for business,” said CEO Rick Emberley yesterday. “It’s not a job site. It matches people, many of them recent

A pair of researchers from Dalhousie University has struck a partnership with a venture capital fund from Toronto to commercialize their pneumatic rotary engine and develop other projects.

Braden Murphy, a Masters student in mechanical engineering, and Assistant Professor Darrel Doman designed the technology at the university, and announced at a reception yesterday that they have partnered with York Bridge Enterprises of Toronto to form Scotia Motor Works, which will bring the product to market. The company has signed a licensing agreement with Dalhousie and the researchers to develop the

When Trevor MacAusland participates in the prestigious Grow conference in Vancouver this month, it will provide a break from the task of building PropelICT into an organization whose influence spreads well beyond New Brunswick.

The Executive Director of PropelICT is the only Atlantic Canadian speaking at the event and will participate in a panel session on accelerators. It’s something he’s well versed in given the roaring success of the first cohort of launch36, the accelerator he launched early this year.  In fact, it was so successful that the program is expanding into other provinces,

When Dalhousie Professors Mary Kilfoil and Ed Leach recently posted a landing page for an innovative entrepreneurship course they’d developed together with their team, they were hoping it would generate some buzz. They didn’t expect more than 85 people to express interest in taking the course titled "Starting Lean’’.

The course, modeled on the methodology developed by U.S. lean startup guru Steve Blank, has created considerable excitement, likely because it demands that students not only study entrepreneurship but, in essence, become entrepreneurs. They must commit either to work on a

If Jeff Thompson hadn’t had so much trouble checking in online for a flight to Australia last autumn, New Brunswick might have missed out on one of its most exciting new startups.

As repeated error messages kept popping up on his screen, Thompson  wondered why airline staff didn’t realize that this sort of problem offered them  a chance to call a customer, improve the relationship and possibly make additional sales.

Thus UserEvents was born.

Fredericton-based UserEvents has developed enterprise software that allows large corporations or organizations to instantly detect clients who

The revitalization of the Newfoundland and Labrador Angel Network is gaining traction, as can be seen in the numbers. Membership last year tripled from 10 to 30, and the group that had no financing deals in 2011 is now preparing to close its third for 2012.

NLAN is not a large organization, but after a few years of uneven perfornance it is heading in the right direction and channeling its members' money into promising enterprises. Under its stewardship, angels have backed three different tech companies with global ambitions, and it is hoping for a fourth funding before the year is out.

Innovacorp’s announcement Wednesday that it will boost its funding for Halifax biotech DeNovaMed to $500,000 is further evidence that 2012 will be a strong year for venture capital funding in Nova Scotia.

The provincial innovation agency said in a press release that it would invest $500,000 in the company, which is developing compounds that can battle “superbugs”. That total includes the $120,000 the company received as the winner of the I-3 innovation contest in January.  The funding will give DeNovaMed enough money to last about a year.

"We're very excited to be working with a team

As it moves toward its Phase I regulatory trials, Halifax-based biotech DeNovaMed is showing admirable flexibility in its financing options.

The company, which is developing compounds that can battle “superbugs”, sprang to prominence in January when it won Innovacorp’s I-3 competition for innovation. The four co-founders have been working on the project for five years and believe they have isolated compounds that can battle these viruses, which are resistant to antibiotics currently available on the market.

During its presentation at the I-3 competition, the team made the potential of

Neurodyn, the P.E.I. biotech developing early treatments for neurological diseases, has closed a deal to buy NeuroQuest, the Halifax-based drug development company spun out of Origin Biomed two years ago.

This interprovincial deal is significant because it enlarges one of the region’s leading young biotech companies, marries two superb management teams and combines their suite of drug candidates that target neurological afflictions.

Founded by CEO Kenneth Cawkell, University of British Columbia scientist Chris Shaw and CSO Denis Kay, Neurodyn has discovered a natural extract from