One of our unquestioned assumptions when we closed the Build Ventures’ fund in 2013 was that launching a startup in Atlantic Canada was cheaper than doing it in other parts of Canada or the United States. Our location, at least in this respect, was thought to be a competitive advantage. There are certainly challenges to building a company here given the early stage of our ecosystem, but we thought we had the core ingredients: lots of smart entrepreneurial people and an environment which allowed those people to get more done with less.  The key cost driver at the early…

The September event calendar for our Atlantic Canadian Tech community was jammed packed as usual. A few weeks ago the new team at Propel ICT held their Demo Day in Moncton featuring 12 companies on stage from the 33 companies that went through the Launch and Build programs. A few days later Volta held their second Startup Empire conference in Halifax. Both events were electric. Demo Day showed that Gerry Pond’s vision of a truly Atlantic Canada-wide startup community is becoming a reality, with strong representation from throughout the region. Propel ICT delivers its program through Planet Hatch in Fredericton,…

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…