Montreal Tech Watch

Raymond Luk (@rayluk) from FlowVentures planned to be in Toronto this week for DemoCamp Toronto ed. 21; thus was born the idea of having Toronto StartupDrinks, in the same evening as the one in Montreal.

It’s a great idea; we’ve been running StartupDrinks in Montreal for well over a year, with every time a large audience. Actually, having one just after a democamp makes even more sense. It’s awesome to have David Crow (@davidcrow) and everyone from the Toronto tech startup community get together for those informal, simple, but in a way, so crucial for the life of a community.

For the Montreal edition, I was surprised to see many new faces, many entrepreneurs, consultants, business and marketing folks, as well as a strong group of technology people. Lots of people talking, getting to know each other, and I’ve seen a few trying to recruit actively talent for new ventures.

Hats off to Robin Ahn (@RobinBirdSounds) who is doing a fabulous work

For those who were there, you can see again the list of attendees here, and (re)connect with them.

See pictures on Flickr

At last week’s OSCON conference event, Evan Prodroumou won an award from Google and O’Reilly Media for his work on identi.ca and the laconi.ca platform.

OSCON is by far the conference with the biggest profile in the year; and it’s a statement well-deserved to Evan’s magnificent work on the laconi.ca platform, which has now reached 7.000.000+ “dents” and 60.000 users.

Google and O’Reilly Media, the co-organizers of the conference awarded Evan, as well as other open source/Free Software leaders, such as the people behind Drizzle, PostgreSQL, etc. The award is given to individuals who innovated in open source and lead by excellence

Evan can be proud of himself; he’s in many ways a model for entrepreneurs and hackers alike, proving that all you need is a laptop and a spot in a co-working space somewhere in the world (ok that was maybe stretching it a little bit, but not so far from the truth…)

You might be like me, i.e. too busy on work & projets to even think of blogging. Or you might be contemplating technology entrepreneurship and startups, as told on high-profile media such as TC or HC

Either way, it’s end of July, which means it’s time for this month’s StartupDrinks. 

What is StartupDrinks?

StartupDrinks is an informal event where entrepreneurs busy in startups, developers, and everyone interested in technology entrepreneurship are invited, grab a drink, share what you’re doing, and get feedback from Montreal startupppers. It’s the ideal moment if you want to talk about a new marketing campaign you’re designing, or about a hard technological problem you are trying to solve. 

Who will be there?

The event gathers entrepreneurs, investors, bloggers, students, and is co-organized with FlowVentures. We’ve hard a regular attendance of around 50-70, and we expected the same number (if not more) this time.

Interested?

The event is this Wednesday July 29th, from 5.30pm at Brutopia, 1215 Crescent Street in Montreal.

Subscribe here if you’re planning to go.

Teralys Capital, the new fund of funds for Quebec and Canada completed the first closing of its fund last week.

Founders & Funders is holding two networking events to welcome Mr. Jacques Bernier & congratulate him on the closing of his new fund.

On Wednesday July 22nd interested entrepreneurs, VCs and angel investors can either purchase a pair of tickets for the John Cleese gala event at the Just for Laughs festival (cost is $375 for a pair of VIP tickets) to join the welcome cocktail and attend the gala show OR there is an option to volunteer to be in the Gala event which includes no cost, but requires the volunteers to rehearse with John Cleese and the Just for Laughs staff from 1:30pm-4:30pm on Wed. July 22nd, then these volunteers will watch the show from backstage and play a small role in the 2nd half of the Gala show that evening.

Details on the July 22nd Gala Event including tickets, registration for volunteer & VIP tickets can be found here.

On Thursday July 23rd interested entrepreneurs, VCs and angell investors can purchase a pair of tickets for the Lewis Black gala event as part of the Just for Laughs festival (cost is $375 for a pair of VIP tickets).

Details on the July 23nd Gala Event including tickets, registration for volunteer & VIP tickets can be found here.

On both evenings there will be a small cocktail reception from 4:30-6:30pm where Mr. Jacques Bernier will speak about the new Teralys Capital fund.

Raymond Luk, from Flow Ventures, announced an investment in a 2nd startup called Art AnyWhere.

Art Anywhere is an artwork rental service, matching any artist and individuals wishing to decorate their home or offices.

Behind the startup is Christine Renaud, known by a few Montreal entrepreneurs for e180, another education web venture which she headed for the past year. I am also sure Raymond Luk is also heavily involved in Art Anywhere, at least on the core idea, business and strategy side.

I have to say the simplicity of the idea is elegant, one of those ideas where I’m certainly eager to try it out. Even though it’s a different industry, this reminds me strongly of netflix’s DVD shipping service, where subscribers get to keep a fixed number of DVDs home, with netflix taking care of logistics, and also taking care of the DVD supply and the recommendation algorithm, so that their users get the best DVD for them.

Of course, this service supposes that inviduals rent, not because of the object’s monetary value, but because of art and the quality of the art work, leaving out people attracted to art because of the rarity and because other people would envy them.

Congrats both to Raymond Luk and Christine Renaud, wishing both of them all the bests!