Aurea Technologies and Dispension Industries split the first prize in the Pitch 201 competition at Invest Atlantic last week.

The two Halifax-area companies made two-minute pitches to a panel of judges at the forum for investors and entrepreneurs, which was held in Charlottetown.

Pitch 101 was won by 6joes, a draft fantasy game for amateur golfers. It is designed to add an additional

Velsoft, an educational software company nestled in the heart of New Glasgow, N.S., has been quietly building its global network, opening offices in Guatemala, South Africa and the U.K, as well as expanding regional operations. Now, Velsoft is positioned for rapid international growth.

The company sells an extensive array of online learning and training materials, from virtual campuses to

Amplify Atlantic, a growth marketing event organized by Propel, is back for its second year. The one-day event is aimed at businesses that are looking to learn about growth marketing strategies to help them grow quickly and successfully.

This year’s event is slated to take place on Nov. 13 at Pier 21 in Halifax. Steli Efti, the Founder of Close.io, an inside sales CRM for startups and SMB’s,

Genesis, the granddaddy of startup incubators in the Atlantic region, has rebranded, moved, and is ready to accept more companies in its new St. John’s headquarters.

Known as the Genesis Centre for the past 21 years, the organization has nurtured dozens of companies from its base in the Bruneau Centre on the main campus of Memorial University. Now it is known just as Genesis and the incubation

Island Advance, an economic development initiative on Prince Edward Island, released a new study at Invest Atlantic on Wednesday that highlights the strengths of the province’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The key finding in the report is the remarkable “quality of place” in P.E.I. that makes it easy to connect with the right people and support programs, said a press release issued by Island

Invest Atlantic kicks off today in Charlottetown, and it will include my presentation on Entrevestor's startup data for 2017. 

EmerGence, the regional life sciences accelerator, will host a session at 10:30 a.m. that will feature a summary of Entrevestor's 2017 Atlantic Canadian startup data. We've been rolling this data out in articles recently, and you can learn about our findings by attending

The Nova Scotia First Fund, the venture capital fund administered by Innovacorp, invested just over $7.9 million in the year ended March 31, 2018, compared with $8.6 million the previous year.

Innovacorp, the Nova Scotia Crown corporation that makes early stage VC investments, released its 2017-18 Accountability Report over the summer, showing an active year with 17 equity investments in 16

Volta Labs in Halifax has accepted eight new tech companies into its residency program. The companies, which range from an e-sports blockchain solution to a cash flow management software will have access to over $50,000 in business-development resources made available to Volta Residents.  

With the official welcome of these companies, Volta is now home to 32 technology startups.

The new

We had some good news and bad news in our 2017 Atlantic Canadian Startup Data report:

1. We had a record year for failures in 2017;
2. Zombie companies accounted for almost one-fifth of the Atlantic Canadian startup community.

In case you were confused, No. 1 is the good news and No. 2 the bad. We needed more failures, and likely need more still.

One of the hallmarks of a healthy startup

Andrew Ray has been named the new Vice-President of Investment at Innovacorp, and he has a singular priority: to see the Nova Scotia venture capital agency make money for the provincial government.

The Crown corporation announced last week that Ray, who has been an Innvovacorp IT investment manager for four years, would succeed Charles Baxter, who retired earlier this year. Innovacorp hired a