Here are three adjectives to describe the 2015 cohort of the Breakthru startup competition in New Brunswick: diversified, experienced and keen.
Breakthru, the biennial competition organized by the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, held its bootcamp on Saturday, which is the one time during the half-year-plus process that all the participants get together in one place.
NBIF this year received 62 entries, though six were deemed ineligible in the first vetting. The remaining 56 teams are all aiming for the top three positions, each of which will walk away with more than $200,000. To look at it another way, each team has a better than five percent chance of landing $200K in cash and in kind services by the time the snow melts. Better odds than the lottery, I’d say.
The 56 teams competing for a total of $750,000 comprise a total of 118 individuals, and every single one of them registered for the bootcamp this weekend.
They received a crash course in business fundamentals from former University of New Brunswick prof Barry Bisson, now the president of the nationwide youth entrepreneurship organization Shad. And they heard encouragement from one of New Brunswick’s most successful tech entrepreneurs.
“It’s the most exciting time ever to be an entrepreneur,” said Marcel LeBrun, the co-founder of Radian6, which was purchased four years ago by Salesforce.com. “And the opportunities extend right across every sector.”
All major sectors in the startup world are represented in the contest this year, and the entries come from across the province. Many have already gone through one of the various mentoring organizations and some have bona fide businesses.
When Bisson asked if any of the attendants had used a business model canvas, about 90 percent of the hands rose into the air.
Talking with some of the entrants, it was obvious many been nurtured by such organizations as the Launch36 accelerator, the Technology, Management & Entrepreneurship program at UNB or others.
Ongazah, which helps people organize, implement and publicize their projects, is a tenant at the Vennture Garage in Moncton. Two Breakthru competitors competed in the regional BioInnovation Challenge in the fall: NB-Biomatrix, a Saint John startup that uses nano-technology to fight water pollution, and Doctor’s Orders, which is developing a “smart cane” to help with the recovery from knee or hip replacements.
Given that this is New Brunswick, there are a lot of IT companies in the running. Take for example Tempo, a Fredericton outfit that is developing an app that automatically chooses music to suit the intensity of your workout. The four co-founders, all enrolled in the TME program, have developed algorithms that can assess the intensity of each song on your playlist. Using either a wearable monitor or sensors on a smart phone, the app will automatically find faster song if you’re running or slowing tunes if you’re walking.
But IT is not dominating the competition. Catarro of Fredericton is developing a household product that instantly cools drinks – sort of the opposite of a microwave. And another Fredericton startup, On Your Plate, is developing a single-serve pancake maker – doing for breakfast what Keurig has done for Coffee.
NBIF President and CEO Calvin Milbury was thrilled Saturday about the enthusiasm and the quality of the competition. He noted that the teams that finish in the top three will be guaranteed a spot in the next cohort of Launch36 (even though a few of the competitors are Launch36 Start grads). He also said the competition is strong enough that the organizers may have to select semi-finalists before announcing the five finalists in late February.
Disclaimer: Entrevestor receives financial support from government agencies that support startup companies in Atlantic Canada. The sponsoring agencies play no role in determining which companies and individuals are featured in this column, nor do they review columns before they are published.
