Robert Niven walked into the CarbonCure Technologies holiday party earlier this month with an expression that was equal parts elation and weariness. Not only had the company’s Founder and CEO spent the week closing a few sales deals, he had also announced a $3.5 million round of financing led by BDC Venture Capital to fund R&D and expand its sales team.

The Halifax cleantech company, which is pioneering a low-carbon process of manufacturing concrete products, was part of a healthy trend that developed in the Atlantic Canada startup community in 2013 – a growing flow of institutional money

One of Atlantic Canada’s premier digital media companies had the honour this year to re-digitize a true national icon — The Canadian Encyclopedia.

Raised Media won the contract to redevelop the esteemed publication’s online product, which involved upgrading both the user interface and back end, adding several features and recoding more than 19,000 submissions.

President and co-founder Mike Rizkalla said the project for the Historica Foundation, the organization that oversees the encyclopedia, was a challenge, and the team is proud to have contributed to improving Canadians’ access to

Dartmouth-based ABM Integrated Solutions, one of Atlantic Canada’s largest IT and communications service providers, has signed an agreement with global telecom technology company Alcatel-Lucent to offer unified communications solutions to clients.

The two companies issued a press release this week saying that ABM has become one of the Paris-based company’s Enterprise Portfolio Partners.

What this means is that the ABM will now be able to offer clients a range of Alcatel Lucent services in the field of unified communications. Now a $20 billion-plus business, unified communications brings

We need an East Coast startup hashtag.

After talking to several people on the matter, it’s become clear that social networking within the regional community is being hindered by the lack of a hashtag for the Atlantic Canadian startup community.

So consider this a call to arms for all of us to use #startupeast in posts about Atlantic Canadian startups and the ecosystem.

The #startupeast hashtag was first developed last year during the East Coast Startup Festival in Fredericton, and I think it’s the most concise hashtag for our community. There are still a few people that use it, but it

December 17, 2013

Ensuring Future Success of NS-Grown Business

Pilot Program Addresses Retirement Challenges of Rural Business Owners and Out-Migration of Youth

The Nova Scotia Youth Succession Program was launched on December 17, 2013. The two-year program is a collaboration of four Nova Scotia-based non-profit organizations who are tackling two common rural challenges – the closure of local businesses due to owner retirement and young people leaving their community to find work in other provinces.

Through the program, retiring business owners are connected and matched with

INTRO: Immunitor receives Grand Challenges Canada funding by the Government of Canada through seed grants. Grants of $100,000 have been given to 83 inventive new ideas for addressing health problems in resource-poor countries. This grant for Immunitor will be used to pursue research utilizing the Island Abbey Foods™ Honibe® Honey Lozenges™ platform combined with Immunoxel immunotherapy for Tuberculosis.

Immunitor Receives Grand Challenges Canada Funding To Help In The Development Of New Tuberculosis Immunotherapy Treatment Immunitor Grant To Pursue Research Using Honibe® Honey Lozenges™

When a pair of female tech entrepreneurs calls their new social media product Hashpipe, it’s a safe bet that they tend to think outside the box.

Yet the story of how Julia Rivard-Dexter and Leah Skerry devised and commercialized Hashpipe reveals more than just original thinking. It also shows a cunning and disciplined strategy that is gaining revenues quickly.

Rivard-Dexter and Skerry are the principals of Norex, a creative web strategy company based in Halifax. In 2012, it incubated Pursu.it, a crowdfunding site for high-level athletes that has raised almost $300,000 for Canadian

Six startups have graduated from the first cohort of the Accelr8 program, marking a landmark in the development of the accelerator course that operates out of the Planet Hatch incubation facility in Fredericton.

The organizers held a graduation dinner on Thursday night to recognize the completion of the course. Executive Director Sally Ng said in an interview Sunday the accelerator will also hold a public demo day on Feb. 8 to give the public a chance to see presentations by the companies.

“It’s awesome,” said Ng when asked how it felt to have the first cohort in the books. “It shows

T4G and the New Brunswick Information Technology Council have announced that the second Big Data Congress will be held Feb. 25 in Saint John, and the keynote speaker will be renowned Harvard innovation strategy professor Clayton Christensen.

The event was launched in January of this year and attracted about 600 people, a tremendous turnout for an event in the Atlantic Canadian startup community. The next congress, to be held at the Saint John Trade and Convention Centre, will be able to accommodate 950 people and will include workshops before and after the event. The goal this year is to

Teenage entrepreneur Raphael Paulin-Daigle is feeling validated after being named one of 10 Future Dragons by CBC’s Future Dragon Fund Contest.

The Grade 12 Moncton student was thrilled to win $5,000 in the contest. The youngster has already proven his entrepreneurial smarts after starting his first business, an online magic store, at the age of 11. He recently had to close another venture, Shopulse, when he realized he could not grow the business, but he chalked that up to experience.

“Winning this contest for me is sort of like a confirmation that people see that I've been working