La presse broke the news about Praized getting $1m from Garage. In the article, the founders, Harry Wakefield, Sylvain Carle, and Sebastien Provencher, said they searched for funding in the US and in other Canadian cities, but finally received it from a local VC. It’s noteworthy that Garage Canada also funded standoutjobs and sponsors barcamps and democamps in Montreal. With this funding and their upcoming seed fund, they are positionning themselves as an indispensable player in the Montreal startup scene.
Praized will allow its users to list their favorite local places, and will begin by offering widgets to bloggers. They hope to launch it in Q4 2007.
Note: I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems that La Presse and the Gazette are now reporting local startups and tech entrepreneurs, which is very good news. Coverage from the general press will get more media attention, thus more buzz, thus more users for new startups. We might even get more people involved at democamps and barcamps too, which is great.
Comments
RobMtl007 September 12, 2007
I’m very happy when startups in Montreal get Recongized.
Great Work!!!!!
Regards Robert
Denis Canuel September 13, 2007
Just like you, I was VERY surprised to see that CyberPresse got the scoop on that one. I was casually browsing when I saw that news. Even the Praized blog didn’t mention about it.
Mass media can still be surprisingly quick and I almost feel ashamed that the bloggers didn’t get it first :)
Once again, good luck to the Praized team. It shows that a lot of work never goes unnoticed!
Heri September 13, 2007
I would have expected too to see the news in a blog. possible explanations:
- Garage & Praized wanted some buzz about the funding, and it’s part of a PR move,
- someone from the Praized team knew the reporter at cyberpresse, and “leaked” it,
- La presse had an article about Garage Canada last week, by Alain McKenna, and he may have stumbled into the negotiation. So they put a reporter on the story.
Most of the time, when a company gets funding, the VC fund expects some kind of press release and media coverage
Now I have no clue why it was cyberpresse. Praized is targeting english-speaking users and it doesn’t make sense to talk about it in Cyberpresse.
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Sylvain Carle September 19, 2007
Marie-Ève Morasse was the first one to cover “Praized the business and the entrepeneurs” last april… We met her in SF and she wrote a nice (small part of an) article about us then [1].
We wanted to offer her a follow up to that story because of that, we respect the fact she was first with seeing our potential and digging a bit deeper, before anyone else, traditionnal or new media.
As to why it was published in Cyberpresse, well from our perspective, an internet startup getting 1M$ is news in Montreal but not elsewhere…
When we will have significant news and really important things to announce, you can bet that the blogosphere and socialmediasphere will be buzzing way before traditional media… give us a few months!
In the meantime, anyone interested in a little bit more juice can contact us either thru praizedmedia.com or directly by email (we trust you can reach any of the three co-founders quite easily)
1. http://technaute.cyberpresse.ca/nouvelles/texte_complet.php?id=81,12399,0,042007,1347039.html&ref=recherche
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