Atlantic Canada’s life sciences startups face a labour crunch possibly even more complex than the one gripping the information technology sector, but short-term training and upskilling programs could offer a partial solution, observers say.

Vivian Beer, manager of HR strategy for the PEI BioAlliance, and Chandra Kavanagh, director of Bounce Health Innovation, said in interviews that the biotech

Commercial spaceflight startup Maritime Launch Services has completed its reverse takeover of now-defunct merchant bank Jaguar Financial Corp., and in a departure from common practice, listed its shares on Toronto’s specialist NEO Exchange for innovation-driven companies.

The deal to buy Jaguar was announced in December and finalized last month. At the time, Jaguar was trading on the TSX Venture

Halifax’s Zen Electric Bikes, which works with prominent Dalhousie University battery scientist Jeff Dahn, has won $100,000 of non-dilutive funding from Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC.

Founded last year by battery scientists and businessmen Ravi Kempaiah, Somu Kumar and Paul Daniel, Zen aims to improve the efficiency of electric bike batteries. The company’s research is

In a deal that aims to make Barcelona a leading hub for the Blue Economy, the World Ocean Council has agreed that the 2022 Sustainable Ocean Summit and inaugural Global Blue Finance Summit will be held in Barcelona. 

The agreement with Barcelona City and Port also names the city as the headquarters for the World Ocean Council, or WOC, known as the global Blue Economy Business and Investment

Charlottetown-based PayTic, whose product streamlines the back-office operations of payment companies, has raised $2.95 million in its initial funding round.

The company, which had previously been in stealth mode, issued its first press release on Monday to say its round was led by Halifax-based Build Ventures. The other investors are Charlottetown-based Island Capital Partners, Halifax-based

Halifax-based advanced materials startup Nova Graphene has bagged a pair of defence contracts to develop graphene-based materials for protecting helicopter rotors from sand, ice and water damage.

Founded in 2017, Nova Graphene’s flagship offering is the CarbonEra suite of products, which are proprietary derivatives of graphene — a form of carbon in which molecules are arranged in a lattice

Fredericton’s Picketa Systems, which makes fertilizer analysis technology for the agriculture industry, has raised a $300,000 round of angel funding that gives the company about a year of runway.

Chief Executive Xavier Hébert-Couturier said in an interview that Picketa spent last summer gathering data from nine New Brunswick farmers, including its own CTO Dominic Levesque, to train its

Halifax equipment rental platform Frenter  has closed the $350,000 second tranche of a two-part funding round worth a combined $620,000.

Frenter raised on the back of monthly revenues well into the four digits, CEO Zach Laberge said in an interview. The pre-seed round was led by Connetic Ventures and Newfoundland's Killick Capital.

Laberge, a 16-year-old student, said the raise gives Frenter

The Nova Scotia Innovation Hub will host a bioeconomy summit at Saint Mary’s University’s Sobey School of Business May 19, marking one of the first forays back into real-world events for the life sciences community after COVID-19.

The summit will run from 7:45 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and include a series of panels about labour market issues, customer development and raising capital.

The Innovation

St. John’s-based Cyno, which has developed a healthcare platform for corporations, has raised a $2.3 million seed round led by the Venture NL fund, which is managed by Pelorus Venture Capital, along with a handful of angel investors and industry experts.

Chief Executive Peter Barbour said in an interview that he plans to spend much of his new war chest on hiring more staff, as well as a push