Picomole Instruments Inc. of Moncton expects to close $1.2 million in equity funding this quarter with the intent of performing clinical studies on a breath-analysis device it believes will revolutionize diagnostics.

In an interview in his office overlooking downtown Moncton, CEO John Cormier said the company has a working, portable prototype of its breathalyzer-like device that can detect lung cancer by identifying markers in people’s breath.

The company plans to spend 2013 performing clinical studies on the device and examining foreign markets, most likely in Latin America or Asia, to

The success of the Big Data Congress in Saint John on Thursday was driven home to me not just be the crowds but by James Stewart shouldering his way through the packed foyer and saying in passing just three words.

“We got approval,” he said

I wrote earlier this week about Stewart’s startup Repeat Target Vehicles, which analyses data from police departments to pinpoint repeated drunk drivers and warn them not to use their car after drinking.

Stewart yesterday said the Saint John Police Department had just received approval to work with RTV on developing the project. Aside from the

Coady Cameron’s thesis for his master’s of civil engineering degree could end up saving municipalities a lot of money.

Coady and his brother, Drew, are the co-founders of TotalPave, a Fredericton startup that aims to revolutionize the way cities and towns assess which roads need to be paved.

The idea is so impressive that the Cameron brothers won the national Nicol Entrepreneurial Award last year for a new technology coming from a Canadian university.

Both men are still students at the University of New Brunswick, and Coady plans to hone the project as part of his engineering thesis.

Bedford, N.S.-based Nova Georgia Properties Ltd. has closed a $640,000 property acquisition in Georgia – another step in its drive to build up a portfolio of residential real estate in the southeastern U.S.

CEO Jamie Nicoll said in an interview the company founded in 2010 has so far built up a stock of 115 properties in Georgia, and intends to continue acquiring until it develops a portfolio that extends from Florida to Tennessee. As the management and board assess strategy, they are considering taking the company public, which would allow it greater liquidity and help to attract

Dalhousie professors Mary Kilfoil and Ed Leach will launch their next lean startup initiative Jan. 30 when they host a meeting for Startup Next.

Kilfoil and Leach last fall shepherded nine teams during their Starting Lean course, which didn’t teach students entrepreneurship so much as made them start a business, with acute emphasis on the value proposition and customer validation. They also organized the Startup Weekend at Dalhousie in November, in which about 10 teams came together for an intense weekend and laid the groundwork for their businesses.

Kilfoil said this morning they are

Talking to James Stewart of Saint John is like waking up on the set of Minority Report, the Tom Cruise movie about technology that prevents a crime before it happens.

Only the crime, in this case, is drunk driving.

Stewart is the founder and chief executive officer of RTV, which stands for Repeat Target Vehicles, a startup developing predictive analytics software that can identify for police departments people who are likely to drink and drive.

The idea is to let the drivers know they are being watched so they will refrain from driving drunk. If the company succeeds, it will save

[Thomas Rankin, Investment Director at Innovacorp, took issue in a recent blog with worries about Series A Crunch. This item previously ran in the Toronto Standard.]

More rare than a humble Kanye? A VC admitting he or she is wrong.

Guess what? I’m wrong every now and then and proud of it. It means I take risks. Believe it or not, failure is also a healthy part of the venture investor’s life.

There is a perceived bubble in seed investing. Industry stats by CB Insights show that the number of seed investments has increased almost six fold since 2009.

Series A (or follow on)

When Calvin Milbury arrived at the Breakthru Bootcamp at 7:30 Saturday morning in Fredericton, the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation CEO found virtually all 47 teams at the meeting and waiting to get into the hall.

He was already impressed that the number of teams entering the biennial business plan competition had risen more than 50 percent from the last contest. But the enthusiasm of the young companies had the habitually cheerful chief executive beaming like a kid at Christmas.

“Everyone was really eager to learn, not just from the speakers but also from each other,” said Milbury

 

Start-up investors often say they love the companies in Newfoundland and Labrador because they view the entire world—not just Canada—as their market. Last week we got a reminder that companies in Atlantic Canada are learning a few things from their northeastern neighbours.

There was a flood of news from the start-up community in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, virtually all of which had to do with young companies expanding sales and operations in foreign markets.

Check out what we covered on Entrevestor.com last week:

 •Livelenz, the Bedford, N.S., maker of analytics tools for

Focusing increasingly on the export market, Seaforth Energy Inc., the Dartmouth-based maker of 50-kilowatt wind turbines, has recently completed installations in Scotland and Italy and is ramping up its sales effort in the Caribbean.

The company is in the midst of installing 11 of its AOC 15/50 turbines in Nova Scotia in a five-month period that will end in March, developed under the province’s community feed-in tariff, or Comfit, program. That program encourages communities to finance and develop renewable energy projects and sell the energy to Nova Scotia Power at a fixed rate.