I’m not even sure if “raises” is the right word here, due to the unsually high amount (an understatement), but RadialPointannounced last week a $98 million investment by a private equity and buyout firm TA Associates. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although it’s certain this is not a complete buyout and TA had in exchange a minority stake (<49% in the company).
RadialPoint started in the early 2000's as Zero Knowledge Systems, with the intention of providing privacy and security management services with the rise of the Internet. Then the tech bubble came, and the company reinvented itself, and now provides complete solutions and packages for Internet service providers' customers. If you are a Bell subscriber, they are the ones for instance who package the anti-virus software and all other home software aimed at easing and adding value to the user's experience. RadialPoint is also active in Europe and the US, and there are plans to market the service worldwide. Such services are essential to ISPs since if a security problem happens on their computer, most customers' reactions is to blame the ISP even in cases when they are responsible.
This is great news for the company, and even greater news for the founders, the Hill family. Before the news of the funding, the original team (well at least 2 of the 3) were also featured in the Report on Business magazine, in early Sep. (from here)
The startup raised initially $1.5 million back in May 2007 from both JLA and Desjardins. It launched the service for MS Outlook in April this year, then released regularly versions for Blackberry handsets and other smartphones devices like the iPhone.
Today, they also launched the web scheduling version of the service, available for free. Previously, users who wanted to use the service had to download a PC desktop software, a barrier for adoption for many. A web-based version means anyone can now try out the service with any web browser, bypassing OS limitations or IT directives. Also announced were compatibility with Google Calendar, iCal and MS Exchange, which means large teams meeting regularly and having trouble finding common avalaible times doesn’t have an excuse anymore not to use the service.
The new $5m funding is said to “accelerate the company’s marketing and engineering activities”, which I interpret that they have now a mature product. Congrats to Marc Gingras and Mark MacLeod!
Since Akoha was publicly unveiled at TechCrunch50, you probably know now about Akoha and its team is trying to build: a social game where members are to give good deeds to friends, and where these friends have to play it forward, thanks to a mission card that traces the “good actions” chain.
If this sounds familiar, that’s because you’ve probably watched the Pay if forward movie:
The video clip shown just above could have been an ad for Akoha, if the actors just had a few Akoha cards in hand.
There’s a lot to be said about Akoha; what’s mind-striking first is that it’s not your typical “web2.0″ website. There’s your typical user-generated content and social network concepts (over)used in the akoha website, but one has to realize that the website are there only to support the game, a game which is to be played in “real-life”. Most of the interactions between the members are supposed to happen during their daily and working lives, which is a welcomed refreshing approach, compared to approaches taken by other web ventures.
I realized then the power of Akoha’s concept. I told the story randomly to one of my friend, and she was excited right from the start about playing the game with friends. And that’s supposed to come from someone who doesn’t have an email address or never (rarely) used a computer before, a friend who usually gives me the blank eye when I accidentally mention “web stuff”.
It’s not then too difficult to imagine the game having massive popularity, people buying card decks, and Akoha distributing them all over the 5 continents.
And then the world changes for the best and we’re overloaded with good deeds… Or is it that simple? Seeing Austin Hill’s past blog posts and actions, I’m sure he’d like to think so. I also think this will work for Montreal and other North America metropoles; hell, they could just get a few celebrities to endorse the concept, and this will be fashionable in a matter of weeks. But I also know that this only works if you’ve more than satisfied your own personal basic needs, and two, if the person is progressist (the I-have-faith-in-humanity type). I’m not sure for instance if this work in certain parts of Africa, or if you even sell the concept to say, a more conservative person.
To elaborate on the previous argument, I’ve once had a friend who kept on saying that if you wanted to improve the world, then just work hard, think of yourself, reap the benefits, because then you’ll share the wealth with your family and possibly, the country too. He used to say that this will bring much more improvements overall than random social actions. An interesting point of view — I like to think that we probably need his and Akoha’s approach.
Of course, we’re far from this today. I’d like to see first a richer gameplay, with maybe character creation and progression, other ways of playing and interacting, missions with other players, in short make the Akoha game fun to play everyday, because after the first played the mission, it’s a barren land, where one feels they’ve “finished” the game.
Responsibilities and tasks:
- Project management for web and online communication projects, including websites.
- Client management for assigned sectors within the university acting as primary point of contact.
- Documenting project objectives, needs analysis, functional specifications, information architecture.
- Quality assurance: evaluating usability, accessibility and standards compliance of sites and services; user testing.
Required knowledge:
- Bachelor’s degree, preferably in Communications or Information Technology or equivalent, with two to four years of experience in design, development and implementation of web communications.
- Experience with user-centered design methodologies, web standards (HTML/XHTML, CCS), web design tools, content management systems and related internet technologies.
- Possess a creative spark, be a team player, client focused.
- Written and spoken English, spoken French.
Compensation:
Hourly rate, depends on experience.
Additional Information:
This is a temporary full-time position for 3.5 to 4 months replacing an employee on paternity leave.
How to apply:
Please send your resume to:
Simon Horn
University Web Communications Coordinator
Internal and Web Communications
Concordia University
simon.horn@concordia.ca
Austin Hill presented today at Techcrunch50 Akoha, a social gaming service for people who want to play it forward.
He handled superbly the presentation, with a mix between personal stories, the demo, and also introducing the cards. The presentation was received very positively by the judging panel; and when they asked for details, Austin Hill told about upcoming new features, showing the project’s maturity, and also showing clearly that this is just the beginning, with much more exciting features to come. Alex Eberts and Austin Hill also distributed kindly schwag to attendees plus decks of cards.
Seeing this presentation, I think it’s fair to say that Akoha deserve all thebuzz… Stay tuned, a review shall come up very soon.
The mybloglog widget has also been removed. There’s something frustrating seeing people signing up with the service because they thought they were joining a “MontrealTechWatch network”, while there is no such thing (at least with mybloglog). I also consider that it adds little value. There’s something though that will replace it very soon, a feature that will have more meaning and allow people to do networking… but that’s another story.
Thanks for everyone who came for the Tech Entrepreneur Breakfast. About 55 people came this morning which is a record for the event!
SUN and the Sun Startups Essentials Canada program sponsored the breakfast. Sarah MacDonald, from embarkonit, an Ontarian management consulting company, explained they were touring Canada to present the SUN initiative to Canadian startups; and will tell the story of startups they meet on various blogs. Apart from the SUN program, Sarah and Michal Berman also instigated the StartupCamp Waterloo events, so it was great to meet them.
Overall, a great tech breakfast, with a new venue, Boccacino, on McGill avenue, a (little bit) more corporate touch, with the arrival of people who came finally to the event because it was hosted downtown instead of being on the Plateau.
Monday, September 8th, 2008 · by Heri · Technology
You can call it buzz; you can also call it a deafening endless stream of tweets; but Montreal is all about Akoha and Praized today.
The 2 startups are in San Francisco at the Techcruch50 conference. Akoha is a finalist and due to give their first ever public presentation wednesday morning, in the Gaming session; while Praized Media is at the DemoPit.
Like the DEMO conference, it’s a key event where a launching company can expect to get attention from investors; but more importantly get the much-needed press and blog coverage, in the same way that SXSW 2007 was the origin of Twitter’s popularity. It’s also an incredible opportunity for entrepreneurs to make connections and build partnerships.
As a sidenote, this finally explains why the Akoha team didn’t give any prior information; and also why they asked everyone to sign a NDA at previous events. Public disclosing of the concept disqualifies a startup launching at TC50. So, until wednesday, you can follow the Akoha team at their community blog, with Austin Hill blogging about the conference. Congrats again to Akoha and Praized, hope they’ll use this event to advance significantly.
Bloom Digital has launched officially late this week, with the announced goal to address the current issues in online advertising.
The Bloom Digital team comes straight from Cossette, a leading integrated marketing agency, and as such, their team is composed of communication, advertising and marketing experts, as well as key technologists (Yves Poiré, Vlad Stesin, Bosko Milekic among others) . On their initial blog post, they’ve recognized the failure of current advertising platforms, unapplicable because of media hyperfragmentation and the very nature of social media, blogs and social networks. It’s well known for instance that Google AdWords is the worst for focused blogs or web startups. It’s often irrelevant, un-engaging, and can even bring a negative value; unless you have a mass audience, with millions of pageviews.
Saying that their vision is a new paradigm would be far-fetched, but it’s quite refreshing to see that one of Canada’s biggest communication agency recognized the problems of the market and launched the BloomDigital upstart. I’m especially looking forward to the platform they are building for blogs. Web publishers, startups and web entrepreneurs building online audiences and looking to monetize via ads should also be on the outlook for their platform. Of course, building this platform is a challenge in itself. Traditionally, leading brands frown upon advertising on small “unnaccountable” web destinations, preferring established websites such as newspapers. But if there’s a team in Montreal who can do it, it’s this team, with their expertise in putting together technology/publishers/ad networks and its advertising expertise.
Praized has launched yesterday an iPhone version of the main portal hub, with a focus on search, and also top places near the user. The geo-localization feature is not yet implemented, but it shows a glimpse of a web application for finding local places on the move.
In the same day, the startup also replaced their homepage with activity streams of users, à la Facebook, with updates coming from all the communities powered by Praized. Previously, Praized.com was also in itself a “Tribe”, but it seems it’s shifting away to become a central hub.
Seeing the frequent updates from Praized, with new product features coming every week, I’m thinking that they are executing a highly detailed plan. As an external observer, I wish though that their team, beginning from the CEO, use the product more often on their blogs and communities, as advertised initially. But so far, the only founder who’s using the Praized platform and highly integrated it in his blog is Sylvain Carle, with handy links to the place’s Praized page. Or maybe I’ve been dissecting too much Jason Calacanis …
As was the case throughout 2008, VC activity preferred Québec IT sectors
in the third quarter. A total of $56 million was invested in 18 IT companies,
or just over half of all disbursements, which is consistent with trends in the
two prior quarters. But in comparison with the $63 million invested one year
ago, IT-related activity fell 11% in Q3.
To the consternation of Twitter users, the site often falters amid the demands of processing millions of tweets a day. One possible solution to this problem is on display at Identi.ca, the site that looks most identical to Twitter. What's different is under the hood: Nearly 100 different sites are sharing the load. "Instead of a single service, we're part of a federated network of microblogging sites running open-source software," says Evan Prodromou, who launched Identi.ca this past summer. He expects the service to mushroom from its current base of 30,000 to 500,000 within a year, and thinks it will surpass Twitter in users by 2010.
Local investors are gearing up for Capital Innovation 2009, an event organized for March next year by Amiral Partenaires. The event will gather private investors such as VC funds, angel investors and fund managers; and is aimed at showcasing high-potential ventures needing from $100k to $1M.
For the event, BDR Capital, ID Capital, iNovia Capital, JLA, MSU and Propulsion Ventures will be selecting 12 ideas which will be presented to investors during the event. Deadline on Nov. 28th for applications:
Weblocal is different though from their previous projects since it allows users to sign up, review + recommend businesses, tag them, as well as upload pictures and photos. It also has a mobile version. Lots of user-generated content then, which puts weblocal in the same category as other websites such asmonavis.ca or praized.
They stay true to the original vision, which is to provide companies a full array of tools highlighting the company’s best traits, making thus the company more appealing to prospective candidate
he Main will become a wireless Internet playground by year's end, thanks to the merchants' association of the world-famous boulevard.
The Société de développement du boulevard Saint-Laurent will provide free Internet access from Sherbrooke St. to Mount Royal Ave. to attract and retain more visitors and to push promotions onto tourists.
Flow Ventures invests in and accelerates startups. Our unique model combines financing, strategy and hands-on operational services designed to grow new ventures quickly and efficiently. Flow can accelerate your startup by operating key areas of your startup including finance, software development, HR, business development and administration. This allows entrepreneurs to focus on their products and their customers rather than building infrastructure and capacity.
Standout Jobs, a leading provider of Web-based tools to power companies’ online recruiting efforts, today announced the general availability of version two of its web-based Recruitment Communication Platform. Previously dubbed “Reception” while in beta, Standout Jobs’ Recruitment Communication Platform boasts many new features and updated functionality proven successful with more than 200 beta customers since the company’s launch at DEMO in January 2008.
La rive-sud de Montréal c’est bien évidemment PRATT & WHITNEY, HÉROUX-DEVTEK, 3M , BOMBARDIER, ou encore DANONE . Mais il existe en Montérégie, bien d’autres PME de domaines aussi diversifiés que les télécommunications, la chimie, la pharmaceutique, l’informatique, l’environnement, l’agriculture, l’agro-alimentaire, l’électronique etc.
My research shows that more than a third of the region's workforce comes from the creative class - scientists, technology workers, entertainers, artists and designers, as well as managers and financial types - putting it in the top 10 per cent of all regions in North America, and a global leader as well. Nearly a fifth of the Montreal region's workforce forms a super-creative core made up of the techies plus cultural and entertainment types.
The Bloom Digital team comes straight from 
