Atlantic Canadians captured three Startup Canada Awards at a gala affair at the CN Tower in Toronto last night, shining the spotlight on mentorship and education in the region.

Gerry Pond, the chairman of East Valley Ventures, captured the headlining Wolf Blass Lifetime Achievement Award for his years of contribution to startups and innovation in the country. 

Mary Kilfoil, who heads the Starting Lean Initiative at Dalhousie University with her husband Ed Leach, took home the Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year award. And the University of New Brunswick was named Most Entrepreneurial

Acadian Seaplants Ltd. has received recognition from BioNova as the Good News Story of the Year.

The Dartmouth company, a global leader in the processing of seaweed-based products, received the award last night at BioNova’s annual Good News and Blues bash in Halifax. The party celebrates one good news story from the past year and features three bands made up of people from the life sciences community – one from Innovacorp, one from Dalhousie medical research, one from ACOA. Somehow, it works.

Acadia Seaplants, which exports products to more than 80 countries, won the nod for its recent

For Tyler Sellars, visiting a relative in her retirement home was a distressing experience. The relative was unhappy and felt uncared for. Now, her sadness has led the 20-year-old New Brunswick entrepreneur to a new business idea that aims to optimize care for the elderly.

In the mid-2000s, Sellars’ relative had suffered a stroke and was living in the facility where she spent her final years.

Want to Play Against the Pros? Foursum Golf Introduces In-App Profiles for the PGA’s Top Players

All-in-one mobile golf app will now let you compare your stats to the pros, including Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and more.

Thursday, June 12th, 2014 9:00am EST

New Brunswick, Canada: Foursum, the all-in-one mobile app for golfers that allows golfers to manage their game while connecting with friends, announced today that they are rolling out their newest feature: reserved profiles for the top 50 players on the PGA Tour. This exciting addition to the app will compliment existing features

In a deal that impacts at least five Nova Scotian tech companies, New Glasgow businessmen Jim Fitt has bought Halifax web design company Headspace Design, allowing its two co-founders to focus on their new startup Proposify.

Fitt, the founder of training materials provider Velsoft, paid an undisclosed amount for Headspace. He promises the highly regarded web development company will continue to meet clients’ needs and to grow in the future.

Headspace co-founders Kyle Racki and Kevin Springer, while assisting with the transition, will move on to work on Proposify (formerly PitchPerfect),

A new report on entrepreneurship in Newfoundland and Labrador reveals the province has a healthy entrepreneurial environment, especially among older entrepreneurs and immigrants.

The findings were released Wednesday in the 2013 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Newfoundland and Labrador Report, part of an annual study of entrepreneurship throughout the world. The provincial report was authored by Gary Gorman, Dennis Hanlon and Blair Winsor at the Memorial University’s Faculty of Business Administration.

“This is a good news report as it tells us that, in spite of Newfoundland and

BioVectra, the Charlottetown drug manufacturer purchased last year by Questcor Pharmaceuticals of Anaheim, Calif., for $100 million, has begun the latest expansion of its facility near the city’s airport.

The drugmaker is demonstrating the economic benefits of an exit by adding 13,000 square feet of space to its factory at a cost of $3.8 million. The company needs the extra space because it is increasing its work force from 140 people in 2012 to 250 people by the end of this year.  

BioVectra received a $3 million loan last year through theAtlantic Canada Opportunities Agency's  

When Gregg Curwin met potential clients in New England last month, he tried using an early adopter pitch he’d just learned from Gerry Pond at the Entrevestor Dinner in Fredericton.

Curwin is the Founder and CEO of Truleaf Smart Plant Systems, a Halifax venture that grows plants in stacked trays under LED lights. He attended the dinner in Fredericton and was especially impressed by the strategy for signing up early adopters outlined by Pond, the chairman of East Valley Ventures.

“I was in the States, and used the early adopter pitch with the Truleaf pitch,” said Curwin. “They loved it

Banyan Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in Toronto and Vancouver, announced it has teamed up with management to buy the concrete division of Pennecon Ltd., a Newfoundland and Labrador construction and engineering company.

The parties did not reveal the financial details. Though this deal doesn’t fit squarely with our mission of reporting on Atlantic Canadian startups, it is another sign of institutional private capital flowing into private companies in the region.

The following is the Banyan press release:

 Management buys out the concrete division of Pennecon

TORONTO,

Bedford-based NewPace Technology Development Inc. has been bought by NewNet Communications Technologies of Arlington Heights, Ill., greatly expanding the sales power of the mobile technology developer.

NewPace, which is headed by founder and CEO Brent Newsome, will become a subsidiary of the NewNet messaging division, based in Amsterdam. The company will change its name to NewNet Canada, and Newsome will become a vice-president of NewNet Communications and general manager of the Canadian operation. NewNet, which is a portfolio company of Los Angeles private equity firm Skyview Capital,