Some of Atlantic Canada’s startup community are wondering why Brandon Kolybaba, a hard-working and talented tech entrepreneur, is packing up and leaving.

According to Kolybaba, he is heading to British Columbia because the high cost of living and his own unpopularity in Atlantic Canada are making it hard for him to work and thrive here.

Kolybaba has co-founded and grown a fistful of

Swell Advantage, the Halifax startup whose app aids boaters, has released the following press release:

Swell Advantage Launches First Social Network for Boaters

Swell Advantage launches the first location based social network for boaters combining the ability to identify and track family and friends out on the water, with unique navigation tools.

July, 9th, 2015 - Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada - Swell Advantage, a marine technology startup focused on building new tools and services for recreational boaters, is excited to announce the launch of its first product, the Swell Advantage iOS

After three months in Las Vegas, Milan Vrekic has launched the company he spoke of when his term as executive director of Volta ended last year.

The former CEO of TitanFile and his partner Colin White have launched Zora, a company that uses technology to streamline the process of property management for small residential landlords. It will have dual headquarters, with the sales and marketing team in Las Vegas and the development team in Halifax. These cities will be the company’s two first markets.

“Home services and real estate services are one of the last remaining big pots of gold on

CarbonCure Technologies, a Halifax-based maker of green construction materials, has issued the following press release:

Cind-R-Lite brings a sustainable masonry alternative to Las Vegas

Nevada's first established masonry manufacturer partners with CarbonCure

Cind-R-Lite Block Company is taking a leadership role in bringing innovative technologies to the Las Vegas building market by partnering with CarbonCure. As Nevada’s first established masonry manufacturer, Cind-R-Lite is now heading in a new direction by using recycled carbon dioxide as an ingredient to make greener concrete

SabrTech will soon start testing its algae-production product, the RiverBox, marking the beginning of the Halifax-based environmental technology company’s commercialization plan.

The Riverbox is a system that can grow algae anywhere, with the goal aiding in several sustainable industries. Algae is a sustainable input for personal care products, food for aquatic animals and a sustainable fuel, and it can be found in the ocean, swamps, rivers, lakes, and polar and tropical regions.

For the past five years, SabrTech CEO and President Mather Carscallen has been researching algae with the

The Verschuren Centre for Sustainability in Energy and the Environment at Cape Breton University has issued the following press release:

Verschuren Centre Launches Fund Targeting Sustainable Start-ups

(Sydney, NS) – Today, the Verschuren Centre for Sustainability in Energy and the Environment at Cape Breton University (CBU) announced the creation of the Cape Breton Island Futures Fund (CBIFF).   CBIFF seeks to contribute to the economic future of Cape Breton Island by providing rapid financial assistance and non-financial business support to encourage the launch of promising ideas, to

At an Atlantic Institute for Market Studies symposium in February, Clearwater Seafoods president John Risley remarked, almost as an aside, that there was virtually no downside in a young person trying to start a business.

His rationale for such a statement is now in evidence throughout the startup community in Atlantic Canada.

“If it doesn’t work out, you’ll be a much better employee for someone than if you hadn’t had that experience,” Risley said. “But if it does work out, of course, that’s great.”

The hard truth is that businesses usually don’t work out — as has been witnessed in

When Steve Nicolle was looking for growth funding for Halifax-based pharmaceutical services company STI Technologies Ltd. in 2013, he decided the founding source that made the most sense was private equity.

STI was transitioning from a startup to a growth company, and Nicolle, then the CEO, wanted to partner with a company that could help it grow.

“We were looking for investors aligned with

Kevin Springer and Kyle Racki have forged an unusually successful partnership — forming two businesses and exiting one — despite a 20-year age gap and early religious differences.

Springer, 51, is president of Halifax-based PitchPerfect Software, the parent company of Proposify.biz.

Proposify is a software-as-a-service, or SaaS, product, which allows members of an agency to collaborate on

I’ve been diving into the data we’ve collected on Atlantic Canadian startups, and one thing that’s become clear is that we underestimated job creation by startups in 2014.

Earlier this year, we reported that the results of our most recent survey showed that employment at Atlantic Canadian startups rose 9.4 per cent, while revenues rose 36.5 per cent. It’s becoming clear we underestimated things on the jobs front. So we’re restating our data to say that the number of people working for Atlantic Canadian startups rose 14.3 per cent in 2014.

Here’s what happened, from the beginning. At