We’re less than a week away from the start of Innovation Week in St. John’s, and I’m really excited to be joining and participating in the events in Newfoundland and Labrador. I’m even hosting one.

StartupNL, which is organizing the city’s first innovation week, announced yesterday that I will host a seminar on Tuesday on messaging and communications for startups. I believe the ability to communicate is part of the founder’s skill set that is too often overlooked, and I hope to help people improve their messaging.

The week of events begins Monday with a fireside chat at Common Ground at

The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation issued the following press release yesterday:

 FREDERICTON, N.B.—The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation (NBIF) today announced $900,000 in funding to support 34 undergraduate and 73 graduate student research assistants at the province’s universities. The funding was awarded in partnership with the New Brunswick Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training & Labour (PETL).

Working with one of the Foundation’s funded applied researchers, each student will earn wages while they learn valuable experience in the lab.

“To build an

Halifax medical device company ABK Biomedical is raising about $1 million in equity financing to help get its product on the European market in about a year. While it’s secured about half the total from the First Angel Network, or FAN, it’s also working with the local investment group to engage with other angel networks in Canada and the U.S.

ABK is the developer of OccluRad — tiny bio-compatible glass beads used to treat uterine fibroids, or benign tumours, in a woman’s uterus. The product improves efficiency and safety when treating women for the affliction. The company hopes to have

On May 12, you can help to shape the direction of one of the most important components of the East Coast startup ecosystem – Mentorship.

That evening, at the Kingswood golf club in Fredericton, Entrevestor will host a dinner at which we will discuss ways to improve two essential ingredients in our community. New Brunswick Innovation Foundation Calvin Milbury will lead a discussion on mentorship, and East Valley Ventures Chairman Gerry Pond will take the podium for a chat about early adopters.  People from throughout the Maritimes have already signed up to come and join these discussions,

Cellufuel, the company developing a biomass facility at the site of the former Bowater Mersey paper mill, is working hard to finalize a $5 million funding round, half of which is equity investment from private sources.

The Halifax-based company hopes to have the demonstration facility in Brooklyn, near Liverpool, N.S., operating late this year of early or early in 2015. Cellufuel then hopes to move on to a larger commercial facility, possibly in Claire, N.S., near the southern tip of the province.

“We have the Canadian license (to the technology) and we’re looking at Nova Scotia first,”

You have a few days left to get your company’s contact details into the Atlantic Canada Startup Directory, and we’re looking for more submissions.

More than 100 startups have submitted their names, which is a good start. But we’re looking for more names.  This is your opportunity to have all your contact details in the hands of people you need to do business with – funders, partners, support agencies and your peers.

We’re looking for startups, but also for service providers, whether they’re government agencies or private firms whose clients include startups. If members of the startup

In 2006, Bob Pelley developed and piloted Innovacorp’s I-3 Technology Start-Up Competition, which began in Cape Breton and spread provincewide, fostering some of Nova Scotia’s most promising startups. Now, Pelley has got behind Spark Cape Breton with the aim of energizing Cape Breton’s burgeoning tech scene.

The inaugural Spark Cape Breton has just concluded, with six very early-stage tech

Haligonians are invited to view a free documentary called Not Business As Usual that stresses the need for entrepreneurs to be agents for social good and redefine business. Organizers of the screening say the documentary recently played to a sold-out crowd at the Vancouver International Film Festival. The movie will play at the city’s Company House on Monday, April 28th and will be followed by a conversation about the future of entrepreneurship in Canada.

Made by InsitituteB.com, a Vancouver-based company that helps develop profitable, socially-purposed businesses, the movie focuses on

The prospects are excellent that equity-based crowdfunding will soon be allowed in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but first securities regulators are looking for feedback on new rules for the online fundraising.

The Nova Scotia Securities Commission and New Brunswick’s Financial and Consumer Services Commission have joined with their counterparts in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec to produce a set of proposals that would let companies raise money through crowdfunding. The Ontario Securities Commission is working on a similar paper.

Crowdfunding, or raising money by seeking small

As the entries are coming in for the Atlantic Canada Startup Directory, it’s becoming clear we at Entrevestor have to differentiate between this directory as opposed to the databank we assembled earlier in the year.

What we are now seeking is the name, address, phone number etc. from all the members of the Atlantic Canada startup community. We’re going to publish this in a directory, a printed booklet, and have it permanently on our website. We’ll distribute the printed version at gatherings like the Atlantic Venture Forum. The details will be public.

Earlier this year, we were looking