When about 50 East Coast founders, entrepreneurs and partners rolled en masse into the Montreal International Startup Festival’s opening night barbeque in matching “Startup East” blue t-shirts, it made a statement.

“It shows that we are presenting ourselves as a community,” said Milan Vrekic, Executive Director of Halifax’s Volta Labs. “More importantly, it shows we are maturing as a community compared to where we were five years ago.”

And while today no one is going to confuse the “Silicon Coast” with Silicon Valley, it does show that something real is taking root in Atlantic Canada’s economy. Maybe, just maybe, those three big startup exits in the region we all talk about with longing were not just aberrations, but the start of something bigger.

“What the hell is going on in the East Coast anyway?” said one slightly incredulous Montreal IP lawyer to me later that evening, surveying the blue shirted crowd.

The Atlantic Canada contingent was a mix of young founders, many from UNB and Dalhousie, more experienced veterans and those from supporting organizations like the Pond-Deshpande Centre, New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, Volta, Innovacorp and Startup St. John’s. There were also signs of the growing regional startup ecosystem with Halifax-based startup lawyer Robert Cowan on hand and (ahem) a representative from a plucky regional marketing firm too.

“The ideas coming out of Atlantic Canada are world class,” said Trevor MacAusland, who heads up Propel ICT. “People always said that before but maybe they didn’t really believe it. Now people actually believe it.”

The founders were hustling hard, making connections and getting face time with VCs and possible partners.  Many of the entrepreneurs already have patents or patents pending for their technology and many already have paying customers. All have big ambitions to build successful companies.

There was a palpable sense that things are happening. “The next five years will be the most exciting,” said Volta’s Vrekic, summing up the feelings of many.

Propel ICT’s MacAusland is equally bullish on the future. “We’re just going to push it forward… I’m bold enough to make a prediction that you are going to see a billion dollar tech company emerge from the region.”

Allan Gates (@AllanGates1) is a co-founder of Bonfire, a marketing and communications firm that works frequently with East Coast startups.