On Thursday, June 2, Affinio – one of our portfolio companies – presented at the Microsoft Accelerator’s Machine Learning Demo Day in Seattle, Washington. It was the culmination of a pretty exciting four months for the company. Back in February Affinio was selected to join the third Microsoft Seattle Accelerator, winning out against hundreds of companies applying from over 50 countries. In discussing this cohort’s special focus on cognitive technologies, Microsoft cited a Deloitte study that found over $1 Billion in venture capital has been invested in machine learning and data science in the last two years alone. During their time…

Fiddlehead Technology, an innovator in predictive forecasting for the food and beverage industry, today announced it received $1.8 million in seed funding led by Build Ventures. The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation also invested in the company’s seed round. Fiddlehead’s flagship product, Forecast Guardian™, helps food and beverage companies improve forecasting performance. It provides recommendations on how to maintain more accurate forecasts with less effort. The cloud-based solution integrates with existing ERP or forecasting software, and can be set up in as little as two weeks. “Forecasting has often been more art than science. But with our prescriptive analytics we can…

At Build Ventures we are excited to see the continued progress of Affinio, a marketplace intelligence company based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Build Ventures was an early investor in Affinio and today we are part of the company’s Series A round. Here is the press release announcing the news: Innovative Content Tech Continues Hot Streak with $4m Investment in Affinio Deep-learning based social-affinity startup will focus on global growth and continued R&D HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, November 2, 2015 – Affinio, a fast-growing marketing intelligence platform, today announced a Series A investment of $4 Million, led by venture fund Whitecap Venture…

We are happy to welcome InteraXon to the Build Ventures’ portfolio. We recently invested in the company’s $10 million Series B round, which was led by OMERS Ventures with participation from existing investors Felicis Ventures, Horizons Ventures and Flextronics Lab IX. As we dug into the company, we got excited about the product and its potential, the traction to date and the depth of the management team. InteraXon has developed Muse, a brain fitness tool that measures a user’s brain waves using seven finely calibrated electroencephalography (EEG) sensors – two on the forehead, two behind the ears working together with…

Build Ventures is entering Newfoundland and Labrador with a major investment, supporting Celtx — a startup whose software is being adopted by companies in film, video and theatre around the world. With CEO Mark Kennedy at the helm, the St. John’s-based company began 15 years ago with the simple idea of taking a range of film production processes—from script writing, to production notes and set designs—and moving them from paper to digital. “This is a tremendous opportunity,” says Kennedy. “We’re reinventing how an industry does its work, and it’s a global business. We make 95 percent of our money outside…

The Atlantic Canadian regional venture fund unveils its name and brings on Rob Barbara as a managing partner. Halifax, NS, May 14, 2013 — Build Ventures, the new venture capital fund based in Atlantic Canada, launched today with almost $50 million in committed capital at first close, and announced Rob Barbara will join as a partner. Barbara and fellow partner Patrick Keefe have already begun the process of finding and vetting high-growth companies in the region that need investment to grow. They are also in talks with other venture capital funds throughout North America that are interested in backing the…