UpFront and Others Mulling ICOs

Conor Daly and Kyle Gardiner produced a “Say What?” moment when they presented their company UpFront at the LaunchPad Dal Demo Day last month and said they were planning an ICO.

The Dalhousie business students said they weren’t seeking equity investment for the company, which uses blockchain to stop scalpers from jacking up ticket prices. They plan to finance it through an Initial Coin Offering

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Jobs: HeyOrca, Audiobooks.com

We have a couple of openings for developers – one in St. John’s, and one in Ontario – to headline the Jobs of the Week column today.

St. John’s-based HeyOrca, which makes collaboration software for marketers, is looking for a Software QA Developer, and Burlington, Ont.-based Audiobooks.com, is seeking a Front-End Developer.

HeyOrca, which announced a $2 million raise in May, has been gaining a

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Ritchie Gears Up for Incubator Launch

With more people, especially millennials, seeking work that is both meaningful and useful to society, Dale Ritchie is launching a Moncton-based accelerator and fund that will boost opportunities for social entrepreneurs.

Ritchie, President of the city’s McKenzie College, is behind the Community Accelerator and Hub Fund, due to launch in September. The accelerator will be based at McKenzie

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ADM Sold to Vinci Energies

ADM Systems Engineering, a Saint John electronics engineering company, has been purchased for an undisclosed price French industrial giant Vinci Energies.

The French company, which has 65,000 employees in 51 counties, issued a statement Thursday saying it was purchasing ADM to strengthen its industrial services business. Vinci booked 10 billion euros in revenues last year. ADM will become part

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Squiggle Park Downloads Jump 5600%

Halifax-based edtech company Squiggle Park is starting August off the right way, pondering how to build on its app’s 5000-percent-plus jump in downloads in iTunes last month.

The company, whose online games help children to learn to read, received the news last week that Apple had selected it late in July to appear in the section titled “New Apps We Love” for iTunes Canada - which is the top

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Air Realty Helps With Mere Listings

A new Nova Scotia real estate brokerage has launched an online service that allows homeowners to list their homes themselves on the Multi Listing Service.

Air Realty is the brainchild of Joshua Svec, an entrepreneur in Cow Bay.  In founding Air Realty, he is hoping to change the way Nova Scotians list their property on the MLS, the standard site for listing properties for sale.

Svec said that

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TruLeaf Launches Across Maritimes

TruLeaf Sustainable Agriculture, the agtech company planning a chain of indoor farms across the country, announced Monday its locally grown microgreen products are now available in select Atlantic Superstores across the Maritimes.

Appearing under the company’s GoodLeaf Farms brand, these products grown in the company’s farm in Bible Hill are now available in a dozen Superstores spanning the

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We Should Follow Trump’s Lead

Now that I have your attention, let me explain what we mean by the headline.

The Trump Administration (or what’s left of it) has set a target of three per cent annual economic growth each year of his presidency. I doubt he has an ice cube’s hope in hell of making it but I like the fact that his administration has announced the target as part of its budget. Atlantic Canadian governments should

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Innovacorp Invested $5.6M in 2016-17

Innovacorp, the venture capital and innovation agency owned by the Nova Scotia government, sank $5.6 million into startups in its 2016-17 fiscal year, continuing at the same pace as the previous three years.

The agency released the numbers last week in its annual accountability report, which outlines its finances and investments in the 12 months that ended March 31.

Last year at this time,

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