Our Guest Columnist today is Jeff Thompson, (@thomjeff) of Fredericton, who exited his tech company Conseros when it was bought by Genesys in 2009. Jeff recently announced his departure from Genesys and is now a tireless and sage mentor (according to several people we know) with Launch36 and the Canadian Youth Business Foundation.

 By Jeff Thompson

The Atlantic region has long been a source of natural resources, including forestry. As a region we’ve been challenged to diversify our economies and ensure we have a place in the so-called new economy.

I heard the New Brunswick Government

An entrepreneur I know recently lamented that most entrepreneurship events in Atlantic Canada are attended mainly by support organizations rather than by businesspeople. What he would love to see is an event that attracts the rookie entrepreneurs—the folks who are working on new technology in their basements.

I suggested that he look across the Isthmus of Chignecto to New Brunswick. The old Loyalist–Acadian stronghold does a magnificent job of dragging its entrepreneurs out of their cellars and into the blazing sunlight where people can see them. In fact, I don’t think any other province

 Dear Readers:

We may have told some of you we were planning to move to Calgary, where Peter had accepted a job with a financial company. Well, as so often happens, those plans have changed and we’re delighted to say we’re remaining in Atlantic Canada. We are now refocusing our efforts on Entrevestor and planning some new initiatives. And we are excited – really pumped! -- about what’s coming up. We know we’re supposed to say something like that, but we’ve got some cool stuff in the pipeline and can’t wait to unveil it.  

Thanks to all of you who sent kind messages. We really appreciate

Any year that features a 2,800% gain on an exit would be a pretty good year for a fund manager, but Calvin Milbury believes the Radian6 exit was only one facet of a successful year for the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation.

During an hour-long interview in NBIF’s boardroom in Fredericton on the first day of fiscal 2013, Milbury discussed the sale of Radian6 to Salesforce.com, which bagged $9.25 million for NBIF, and the exit of Q1 Labs, which wasn’t an NBIF portfolio company.

They were the highlights of the fiscal year that ended March 31, but Milbury was more interested in talking

Ad-Dispatch, the Dartmouth-based augmented reality company, will announce today that it is spinning off its audio and video production division into a separate company called Current Studios to ensure better use of its talent and resources.

Headed by seasoned producer Richard Huggard, Current Studios will offer broadcast radio and television production in addition to online web video, animation, and 3D modeling.

The group hopes the new branding will, among other things, help in sales to Atlantic Canadian companies by reminding them that there’s a source for top-quality production

Since moving to the cloud a month ago, Celtx has released 14 new products and now the company is gearing up for a couple of more launches – big launches.

St. John's-based Celtx is one of the world’s leading makers of pre-production software for the film industry. Its free software allows filmmakers – whether they’re directors, cinematographers, writers or whatever – to do all the preparations they need for filming on their PC or device. First funded in 2006, the company now has almost 2 million users (those who have logged in 5 times or more) in 170 countries operating in 34 languages.

 Even though he co-founded Startup Kitchen to discuss technology, Suhaim Abdussamad’s favourite podcast is the interview with the operator of a gourmet food truck.

On New Year’s Day, the Fredericton-based video-blogging site broadcast an interview with Jamie Lynch, who had just launched a mobile gourmet business called Fresh Mobile Bistro. Seated before a PC, Lynch described the process of starting his business with $45,000 from BDC and the Canadian Youth Business Foundation, and told why his business is different from other food trucks. It was a bit of a departure for a website devoted

 We in the media missed a little item this week, but it merits a bit, maybe quite a bit, of attention: SimplyCast has launched a Chinese version.

The Dartmouth-based company is already a global leader in multi-channel marketing and CEO Saeed El-Darahali is now making good on his ambitions to dominate this business worldwide. The former Innovacorp exec never lacked determination, planning SimplyCast at inception as a platform-as-a-service enterprise rather than a simple software-as-a-service solution, meaning the company could develop new products more quickly and inexpensively than

Karma Gaming, the Halifax startup out to marry regulated lotteries with video games, is on the verge of closing a $750,000 second round of funding and hopes to bring in a third round by September.

Chief Executive Paul Leblanc and Chief Innovation Officer Jay Aird said in an interview today that they’ll close the second round in the next two weeks. Their first round was a $500,000 funding from Groupon CTO and Dalhousie University alum Paul Gauthier and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. Acoa will also play a role in Karma’s second round, which will include about $250,000 in

The results of one of New Brunswick’s ambitious accelerator programs will be on display next Wednesday in Moncton as five companies from the McKenzie Accelerator pitch at an Angels’ Den.

Last autumn, two new accelerator programs began in New Brunswick:  PropelICT’s Launch36, which we wrote about last month, is designed to bring companies to the market-ready or investment-ready stage; and the McKenzie Accelerator is designed to take concept companies and prepare them for seed funding. The idea is that a company can go through the McKenzie Accelerator and be ready to enter Launch36.