Volta Labs, the Halifax startup house, has announced that it will hold its second annual Startup Empire event next month, featuring a range of speakers who have developed leading startups.

Held at the Park Lane Cineplex Theatre on Spring Garden Road on Sept. 24, Startup Empire is a one-day conference that will feature talks by entrepreneurs whose companies have been valued at hundreds of millions of dollars or more. And it will feature company showcases by the founders of up-and-coming Atlantic Canadian startups.

Startup Empire was first held last September, and was a sell-out event. Volta, which recently moved from its original location on Spring Garden Road to the Maritime Centre, now hopes to repeat the success with the second conference.

“This conference will draw Atlantic Canadian startups together, providing access to world-class industry speakers and allowing attendees to learn from the best about how to scale their companies and drive early stage growth with sales,” said Volta Executive Director Melody Pardoe in a statement.

The main speakers for the event will include:

·         Howard Lindzon, co-founder and CEO of San Diego-based Stocktwits, a leading communications platform for the financial and investing community;

·         Marcel LeBrun, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Salesforce Radian6, the Fredericton-based social media-marketing division of CRM giant Salesforce;

·         Leila Boujnane, co-founder and CEO of Idée and Tineye, Toronto companies whose technology allows users to search for images;

·         and Michael Donovan, Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of DHX Media of Halifax and Toronto, specialists in video programming for families and children.  

The organizers said there would be many other high-calibre speakers as well.

“After the success of last year's conference, we wanted to continue to bring speakers to Atlantic Canada who can help local startups grow,” said Jevon MacDonald, a co-founder and board member of Volta. “The conference also gives us the chance to bring in entrepreneurs from other regions and show them what amazing things are happening here in Halifax.”

Startup Empire also allows promising Atlantic Canadian Startups to showcase their companies and products on-stage to give the visiting speakers and local attendees an idea of the products being developed in the area. The local presenters last year included such Halifax companies as Dash Hudson, which allows people to buy clothes they see in Instagram posts, and Vendeve, which operates a networking site for self-employed women. The local entrepreneurs speaking this year’s even have not been named yet.

Startup Empire will be just part of a busy autumn for startup-related conferences in Halifax. The Atlantic Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Conference will be held at St. Mary’s University on Sept. 17 and 18. Invest Atlantic will take place on Sept. 29 and 30.  The Big Data for Productivity Congress – the latest iteration of the Big Data Congress held in Saint John the last two years – will be held Oct. 19 to 21. And the life sciences conference BioPort Atlantic will take place Oct. 28 and 29.