The trophy case for Atlantic Canadian startups gained a positively cluttered look yesterday as GoInstant of Halifax and SimplyCast of Dartmouth both brought home some silverware.
GoInstant, which launched in September with $1.7 million in venture capital investment, was voted the most impressive company at 48 Hours in the Valley, a program that brings Canadian entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley for two days of instruction. Late in the second day, all participants were asked to vote on the best presentation via texts or twitter, and GoInstant won.
C100 – the group of Canadian expats in Silicon Valley that organizes 48 Hours in the Valley – said in its blog that the first prize is a 30-minute session with Shervin Pishevar, managing partner of Menlo Ventures, a VC fund with more than $4 billion under management.
Founded by CEO Jevon MacDonald, Gavin Uhma, Kirk MacPhee, and Dave Kim, GoInstant’s technology allows two people in two locations to use two mouses to share a PC screen, allowing companies to work more closely with customers to explain how its product or service works.
Meanwhile, SimplyCast claimed seventh place on the list of the 20 most popular marketing automation software solutions by Capterra, the leading online destination for business software buyers.
One interesting feature of the list is the value of the companies that placed just ahead of SimplyCast. The No. 5 slot went to Unica, which IBM bought for $480 million last year, while No. 4 was Aprimo, purchased by Teradata for $525 million. Just sayin’.
Headed by CEO Saeed El-Darahali, SimplyCast is multi-channel marketing company that just launched its Version 7 product, including new features that will make it easier for users to reach their audience.
The platform-as-a-service company now boasts thousands of corporate clients in more than 175 countries, including the likes of Cisco Systems, Huskey Energy, Maritime Travel, Bank of America and the Jim Henson Company.
What all this adulation means is that next year we’ll have to hold the bar a bit higher when covering award stories. Consider that in the three short and hectic months since we launched Entrevestor, Atlantic Canadian companies have won the following awards:
- Canada’s Venture Capital and Private Equity Association awarded its Deal of the Year to the VC firms that backed Radian6 Technologies Inc. of Fredericton, which exited for about $370 million in March.
- Halifax-based Compilr, led by CEO Patrick Hankinson, was the only Canadian company selected for the international week-long Seedcamp event in London in August. Compilr allows programmers to write code on the cloud.
- The Canadian Innovation Exchange named ClearRisk of St. John’s to the 2011 list of Canada’s 20 most innovative technology companies. Five-year-old ClearRisk Inc. is an SAAS venture that helps mid-level insurance brokers assess risk.
- Two St. John’s companies were named to the 2011 Deloitte Tech Fast 50: Marport Deep Sea Technologies placed 17th after its revenues increased 1131 percent over five years. And Verafin, which makes anti-fraud and anti-money-laundering software, took the 27th position.
- And ScreenScape Networks of Charlottetown, which customizes video screen displays for clients, was one of ten companies named to Deloitte’s Companies to Watch list, the first time an Atlantic Canadian company has won such an honour.
