The Atlantic Venture Forum on Thursday named four winners of its annual pitching competition and unveiled plans to integrate the annual startup conference into a startup festival next year.
The AVF brought together founders from across the region with a range of investors and startup organizations. The event featured 21 companies in four streams that pitched for investors, and about eight companies that were exhibiting in the hallways.
The winning companies in the pitching competition were:
ICT Section
R I D D L, Fredericton – The runner up of this year’s Breakthru competition, R I D D L has developed a platform that will help impact investors assess the social or environmental effects of their investments. It has arranged pilot tests with investment houses in Europe and the U.S., which will generate data and help prepare the platform for a general launch.
CleanTech Section
Canum Nanomaterials, Fredericton -- Fredericton-based Canum has grown out of UNB Professor Felipe Chabante’s research that has resulted in a new, cost-effective way of making fullerenes. These nanoparticles are spherical structures of carbon atoms that have a range of commercial uses, including in healthcare and solar energy. The company, which won Breakthru, is planning to set up its initial manufacturing facility in New Brunswick.
Read our Report on Canum and R I D D L Winning Breakthru
Life Sciences Section
Colorsmith, Halifax – Having set out to produce contact lenses that can assuage the effects of colour-blindness, the company now is working on contact lenses that can filter out the “blue light” produced by computer screens. By saturating colours, its lenses allow users to unlock a new level of beauty and utility in vision and enjoy the experience of sight.
OceanTech Section
Ashored, Halifax – Ashored is developing fishing equipment that reduces the risk of animals such as whales becoming entangled in ropes and the risk of lost equipment littering the ocean floor. Its first product, the Modular Ocean Based Instrument, or MOBI, is a lobster trap buoy that is positioned near the ocean floor and released only when the fishing boat approaches.
Read our Recent Report on Ashored
The 2019 AVF was the sixth year for the conference, and the organizers revealed some of their plans for Year 7, when the AVF will be a cornerstone of a Startup Week celebration.
J. Curry, representing the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, and Jeff Larsen, representing the Creative Destruction Lab-Atlantic, outlined how their two organizations will collaborate next year on a regional startup festival.
On May 5 next year, there will be a demo day for CDL-Atlantic, which is a half-year accelerator for leading pre-seed stage companies. Larsen said that next year, the 25-company cohort will be divided evenly between general startups and oceantech startups. In 2020-21, the cohort will have two streams – oceantech and general, of 25 companies each.
The demo day will be followed on May 6 and 7 by the 2020 AVF, said Curry, adding there may be other events as well.
“We’re going to have a lot of people coming from all over the world coming to Atlantic Canada,” said Curry. “They’ll be able to witness everything from pre-seed companies all the way up to Series A companies.”
