Montreal Tech Watch

Canada’s Venture Capital & Private Equity Association is planning their annual conference here in Montreal just at the end of the month, with Chris Arsenault (iNovia Capital) the chairman of the event . This year’s theme is “The face of change”, with panels, conferences, sessions about the topic, as well as dinners and cocktails, plus the obligatory golf event. An “Entrepreneur of the Year” award will also be given this year.

This is a high-profile event where VCs from all around the country will get to opportunity to meet, connect and network. I’ve seen the sessions and the program, and while a couple of them have compelling descriptions, I am sure most of the value of this conference for new & experienced VCs wouldn’t be those sessions but the opportunity to mingle with others, share stories and more, in their own manner; in the same way that we are doing the Tech Entrepreneur Breakfasts or StartupDrinks, with our own jargon, habits and other codes.

It’s great to see this coming to Montréal, if I spot something good, I’ll report it back to you; and if you are an investor, bookmark the page.

MSBi Valorisation, which works closely with research departments in 3 Québec universities, has announced last week they have invested in WideSail Technologies. If the name rings a bell to you, it’s also because it’s the old name of iNovia Capital.

WideSail is a semiconductor spun-off from McGill University, and has developed new error correction technologies with unique performance. WideSail has announced it will license the design to manufacturers, for use in WiFi, WiMAx, Ethernet, and next-generation telephony networks.

WideSail’s CEO is Gord Harling, a serial entrepreneur who alreay has under his belts 2 other successful technology companies.

The amount of the investment was not disclosed.

And here, you expect an industry analysis, but I have to say I know absolutely nothing about the current semi-conductor industry — last I checked I only did the theory in engineering, so I am in no position to state if widesail is going to be successful. Congratulations are in order though, it’s refreshing to see that the semi-conductor companies are active in Montréal.

The BlackBerry Partners Fund is launching today, and it’s a $150 million fund specifically targeted for mobile startups. The fund is managed by JLA Ventures and RBC Venture Partners.

It’s announced as stage-agnostic and also platform agnostic, meaning that they are willing to take a look and fund a mobile application that is not specifically made for BlackBerry handsets, although one condition is that a BlackBerry version should be planned at one point in the roadmap.

The fund’s limited partners are RIM, RBC, and Thomson, although investment decisions will be taken only from the JLA and RBC Venture Partners. See Rick Segal and the Wellington fund blog for more details.

Things are heating up recently in the mobile space, with a radical shift from hardware to software. The iFund was announced just one month ago, when Apple launched the iPhone platform. Just late last week, Nokia’s CEO also announced that they are moving from being a traditional manufacturer to a stronger focus on software. This is amidst reports of huge projection for the mobile space ($15billion market in 2013) and huge amounts of money thrown at new mobile networks in the US, and right now in Canada. Undoubtably, RIM also realized that while they had a very strong core product, they were lacking in third-party applications that would enrich BlackBerry and make it more pro/consumer friendly.

Mobile applications are the new frontier, and needless to say, it’s exciting to see that the action is happenning right here.

It seems everyone agreed to schedule their events this week, and it’s the busiest week this year so far in Montréal. Here it is:

• MobileMondayMontreal, today from 5.30pm at la SAT, 1195 bvd St-Laurent, for people involved in the mobile industry.
• Montreal Tech Entrepreneur Breakfast, tomorrow from 9am, at Bistro ETC, 1291 bvd Mont-Royal Est, for technology entrepreneurs and anyone interested in technology entrepreneurship,
• 4th edition of Webcom Montreal, wednesday, 999 rue Université, a web conference (registration required),
• Founders&Funders, wednesday evening, a select dinner for startup founders and for VCs and angels, invitation only,
• StartupCampMontreal, thursday from 6pm at la SAT, 1195 bvd St-Laurent, a camp for technology startups,
• Codefest, by the php Quebec folks, starting from friday at 6pm up until sunday, Pub sans génie, École de Technologie Supérieure, for developers wanting to work together on a project

I know there was talks about a BarCamp originally scheduled this week, although this was fortunaltey (unfortunately ?) pushed back to an undefined future date.

So we’ve got here all sorts of events, from the pure networking, to the one “just for developers”, from the least informal to the select ones. If you’ve got free time this week and interested to see what initiatives are cooking up in Montreal, I am sure you’ll find one that interested

Update: Nicolas Cossette also adds:

• Journée infopresse on Search Engines, SEO/SMO (wednesday, ex-centris, registration required);
• Yulbiz (mardi soir);
• WebCamp (wednesday, a camp during webcom);
• Yultour (mercredi soir)

Company: BroadSign

Position: Operating System Specialist

Responsibilites and Tasks: BroadSign International is a Montreal-based rapidly growing digital signage software-as-a-service provider that is looking for an technology enthusiast to architect, build and maintain what we are
calling the BOSS (BroadSign Operating System Service). The BOSS is a remotely upgradeable bare-bones version of Ubuntu 7.10 that is custom tailored to meet a client’s embedded application requirements.

Required Knowledge:

The BroadSign Operating System Specialist should eat-breathe-and-sleep Linux, Windows, PC hardware. A background in open source and free software development and advocacy is a bonus.

Additional info:

As the company is growing at a rapid pace, the opportunities for growth within the Solution department and the company as a whole are unique. If you are a driven individual with a technical background, don’t miss this opportunity to join our outstanding team.

Contact :

To apply for this position, please submit your resume by email to

hr@broadsign.com

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The 2nd edition of StartupCampMontreal is due this upcoming thursday at la SAT, May 15th, from 6.00pm.

The event is dedicated to technology startups, the main feature being 5 new startups pitching the crowd about their product and business plans. You can view here a report about the first edition. This time, we will have:

• camwii is an easy-to-use screensharing application.
• LoyaltyMatch, a new website that allows trading of loyalty points, outside of the normal program and offers setup by companies. This is one of those services where you’d say why didn’t i think about this.
• Healthivate allows consumers to purchase high-quality health services on a global scale. Not sure if there is anything behind this apart from the concept.
• Startyourtube allows anyone to create their own youtube video website, around a community (see last post)
• Vencorps wants to do crowdsourced funding, which would be a revolution

The guys from Embrase are also bringing in Dan Mothershill and Austin Hill as keynote speakers. From what I saw last time, there was also lots of networking going on and also a section for other startups who want to present a demo, making startupcamp an unmissable event for this week.

Codefest is a 3-day event due next week, from May 16th to May 18th. The event’s tagline is “2 days to optimize and improve your favorite free / Open Source project”.

I have been to the last codefest and here is a glimpse of the event:

The last Codefest gathered consultants, programmers from various IT companies, students, as well as various Free Software advocates. There isn’t really a definitive way to qualify those who attended the event, I’d just say that most were curious on building new tools and trying out new things. In this regard, Codefest is reminiscent of Blitzweekend, although it doesn’t put a focus on “business issues”. It also puts more focus on the community aspect; as there are no “teams”, projects are shared informally. Another way to put it is that Blitzweekend is focused on the end-result, while Codefest is focused on the coding and work-sharing process.

While there was a majority of php developers at the last event, the upcoming codefest is presented as open to other languages and projects (drupal, typo3, tikiwiki, python, ruby etc.). The event is also opened to contributions by the community and sponsors — if you are a company looking for talented developers, it’s a great way to reach them.

This looks like a great event that should be a blast, if you are a developer and want to hone your skills. Or you could just want to meet similar-minded people.

What: Codefest, a weekend-long coding session
When: May 16th, May 17th, May 18th
Where: Pub sans génie, Ecole de technologie supérieure

Company: Inverse

Position: Senior software developer

Responsibilites and Tasks: Your main responsibilities will be to contribute to the development of the SOGo solution while participating in the deployment and support of clients groupware solutions.

Required Knoweledge:
• Bachelor or master degree in computer science or computer engineering or equivalent professional experience
• Excellent knowledge of the C, Objective-C, Java and JavaScript programming languages
• Excellent knowledge of the GNU development tools
• Good knowledge of the Mozilla project and in the development of Firefox or Thunderbird extensions
• Good knowledge of database systems such as MySQL and PostgreSQL
• Passionate about Free and Open Source Software
• Passionate about innovative technologies and teamwork
• Handle well pressure and tight deadlines
• Capable of travelling to client sites (United States and Europe)

Additional info: Please send us your resume at the following email address: rh@inverse.ca.

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Videorix is a new online service that allows video content producers to look for potential ads for their videos.

Videorix allows companies and brands to create a logo and a tagline, that video producers can include at the beginning of their video. In the current system, the producer is paid by video, and not by views (since the latter information is controlled by the platform (youtube, dailymotion, …) where the video is distributed )

Videorix is brought up by Nadim Elgarhy, who already did Brandfame. This was covered earlier in MontrealTechwatch. However, Brandfame was focused on product placement, and the video producer had to find a way to showcase the product somewhere in the story. This process is lenghty, fastiduous, and not always possible for the video producer. That’s how Videorix came up, which has less barriers of entry for video producers and might just be an easier pill to swallow for videographers who want to keep their independence in regards to sponsors.

This will undoubtably get more mass traction than Brandfame, although I am betting that it’s not the only service of its kind either. Even then, the day it will be massively successful, this is the kind of service that Youtube/Google could do in a snap. But what the videorix founders could do is prove that this means significant revenus for video producers, and also gain a significant market share — or better yet, prove that this can be a signicant revenue/business model for all the people who upload videos to youtube.

OZ received this week $10 million funding from Wellington Fund, a Toronto-based fund specialized in venture debts for growing companies.

OZ provides Instant Messenging plus many other applications such as mobile email or mobile social presence. You might have never heard of the company, because they sell the solution directly to wireless carries, such as Bell, AT&T, T-Mobile, Rogers, Sprint etc.

OZ announced they will be using the funds to develop new products, such as mobile social networking.

From Wireless North.