There’s been a subtle change on the podium of Innovacorp’s I-3 competition, and it’s a change for the better.

The provincial innovation agency released on Monday the regional winners and runners-up of the biennial competition, which aims to find the top new knowledge-based companies in the province. And what leaps out is that the winning company in each of the five zones is more steeped in proprietary technology than in previous years and is farther down the entrepreneurial path than past winners.

What’s significant is that the benefits of the innovation boom are spreading throughout

UserEvents, a Fredericton startup whose technology alerts corporations when customers are having trouble with online transactions, has sold out to LiveOps, Inc., a global leader in cloud contact center and customer service solutions.

The Redwood City, Calif., buyer released a statement this morning announcing the deal, though it did not release the price. The company did say the move comes after it completed a US$30 million debt financing – or C$33.3 million at the current exchange rates.

This marks the second exit for CEO and Co-Founder Jeff Thompson, who five years ago sold his

Matthew Fanning reveals his background in sales as he begins to tell the story of Presenter’s Podium, the eLearing platform he has developed and is beginning to sell to universities in the region.

The former medical device salesman delivers a compelling pitch for his product, which grew out of his time taking a Bachelor of Commerce at St. Mary’s University’s Sobey School of Business. At the time, he noticed that professors had problems teaching oral communications skills – one of the key talents demanded by employers. With large class sizes, profs can’t listen to presentations from every

Eradicating illiteracy is a lofty goal, some might say an unrealistic one, but for Joelle MacPhee the fight against illiteracy is a family tradition, a business, and a battle she intends to win.

MacPhee, 25, is director of reading partnerships at Charlottetown-based Ooka Island, a company that develops software that teaches children ages three to seven to read. Ooka was conceptualized by

Nova Scotia Business Inc. on Thursday said it has sold its shares in Halifax-based DHX Media Ltd., almost tripling its money in less than nine years.

Founded by Michael Donovan, a long-time film exec who won an Academy Award for his work on Bowling for Columbine, DHX is involved in the creation, production and licensing of family entertainment rights.  The company owns, markets, and distributes 9,500 half hours of children's entertainment content, and exploits owned properties through its consumer products licensing business.  Its brands include Yo Gabba Gabba!, Caillou, Teletubbies, and

The presentation this week of Deloitte Canada’s tech outlook indicated there are some interesting opportunities for Atlantic Canadian startups, and showed where the region has to improve its ecosystem.

The findings of the 13th annual Canadian TMT Predictions (TMT stands for technology, media and telecommunications) have been well reported elsewhere, so I’d like to just delve into a couple of things that came out of the presentation in Halifax on Tuesday by Duncan Stewart, director of research at Deloitte Canada.

Stewart made stops in Saint John and Halifax this week to discuss the

I’ve been talking to people throughout the startup community about our survey, and the overwhelming message I’m hearing is that the data provided by the survey will definitely help the ecosystem.

In case you missed it, Entrevestor will soon send a two-page survey to every startup we know of in Atlantic Canada – that’s about 300 companies. We will keep all the information on individual companies completely confidential. Yet, by aggregating the information, we will be able to present a more concrete picture of why the startup community is important to the region’s economic future.

This is

Yan Simard believes 2014 will be the year the market catches up with his company’s capabilities.

Simard is the founder and CEO of Zaptap, the Fredericton-based company that helps retailers market products in-store through consumers’ smartphones. The company has spent the past year refining its product and learning more about the marketing processes, and is now talking to major companies about larger, longer engagements than before.

It is working on a live deployment with a global brand in the automobile sector, which will begin  in the second quarter a paid one-year trial in Ontario. 

Almost three years after striking its groundbreaking partnership with Oxford Instruments of Britain, Fredericton-based Green Imaging Technologies has reached an important milestone, paying its first dividend to shareholders.

Green Imaging was launched by Derrick and Jill Green, who used technology developed at the University of New Brunswick to make it easier, faster and more economical for petroleum companies to study rock core samples extracted during the exploration process.

The Greens funded their growth through angel investment, including raising an undisclosed amount from members

As far as apps go, Halification and Farm To Table have little in common – except that they were both crowned winners at tech competitions in Nova Scotia this weekend.

Halification, which alerts people with public notices in the Halifax area, won two categories in the first Apps4Halifax competition,  capturing $12,000 in prize money. Developers Majd Hussini and Sam Jawich of Bedford received gold awards for the Your City and Go Green categories.

Meanwhile, in Wolfville, a team called Farm To Table, which developed an interactive mapping application that helps people find produce or