Research and Innovation : Innovation + Job News

ClimateSpark looks to crowdsource green innovation; offers $50K in startup funding

Wednesday, October 05, 2011

The ClimateSpark Social Venture Challenge launched late last month, offering people with innovative green business ideas access to as much as $50,000 in startup funding. The challenge, run by the Toronto Atmospheric Fund, the Centre for Social Innovation and the Toronto Community Foundation, draws on a fund of $500,000 that can be awarded through grants and loans to the most promising business ideas.

Jason Wagar, manager of donor services and marketing for Toronto Community Foundation, calls it a method of "crowdsourcing green innovation." Within two weeks of the phase one launch, 26 business ideas were submitted.

"What`s interesting is that some of the ideas are fully developed business plans, and others are just the beginning of an idea, but a community of more than 200 people are sharing thoughts and suggestions," says Wagar. "So these ideas can be shaped by the city--by experts, potential clients, potential suppliers.... At the end of the process the community has done some of the due diligence for the investors."

The first phase, gathering ideas online, will last nine weeks. Then 10 finalists will present their proposals to expert advisors. Finally, the finalists will make their pitch to investors, who will decide on awards, grants, loans and investments.

"Ultimately," Wagar says, "we're hoping to see a cleaner environment."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Jason Wagar, Manager of Donor Services and Marketing, Toronto Community Foundation

Oncology startup Segasist prepares to unveil 'revolutionary' technology, has grown from 3 to 5 staff

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Toronto medical software startup Segasist Technologies plans to launch its new cancer diagnostic tool Reconcillio at the American Society for Radiation Oncology conference in Florida early next week. Founder and CEO Dr. Hamid Tizhoosh says the product represents the culmination of his company's work and could eventually "revolutionize oncology."

Reconcillio is an automated "contouring" tool that learns from doctors as they outline tumors for diagnostic, treatment planning and monitoring purposes. Each oncologist will have his or her own style of contouring, and often several doctors will need to spend hours separately performing the process to reach consensus. The software learns different doctors' styles and can then apply them to new medical images. It can provide "consensus contours" showing how multiple doctors in a hospital would contour the image. And Tizhoosh says eventually, it could provide a cloud-based tool containing the consensus of all 5,000 or so oncologists in North America.

The company's history, Tizhoosh says, goes back to when his grandfather died of lung cancer. Then an engineer, Tizhoosh vowed to fight cancer. "I had young children at that point, so it was a risky move, but I decided to do a PhD in medical imaging." Originally born in Iran, Tizhoosh was based in Germany, but moved to Canada in 2000 and took a job as a professor at Waterloo University. It was there he set up a research team to develop his software, and by 2007, he had a prototype.

Tizhoosh says the company established itself with grants and venture capital financing in downtown Toronto because the access to world-class cancer hospitals was too good an asset to ignore (though the commute to Waterloo where he continues to teach is sometimes difficult). In the past year, the company, based at the MaRS incubator, has growing from to five from three staff, and expects to relocate to its own offices early next year. Reconcillio will be the third product the company has launched--its second, the engine that will eventually drive Reconcillio, is awaiting FDA approvals. Tizhoosh expects to receive those next month. From there, more financing will be made available and the company will begin the approvals process for Reconcillio.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Dr. Hamid Tizhoosh, CEO, Segasist Technologies

1DegreeBio doubled staff over the summer, expands office, closes funding round

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

It has been, 1DegreeBio founder and CEO Alex Hodgson says, a busy summer.

"We closed a funding round in early July, we've hired new hands and moved to new offices," Hodgson tells Yonge Street. Amid the flurry of growth activity, the medical research database startup has also been redesigning the front and back ends of its website and adding new products.

Hodgson says that over the summer, the size of her staff has more than doubled, from four full-time employees to nine, with one more new position about to be added. She says the hiring itself has been a delicate process--so many new staff at a small startup company can dramatically affect the culture. However, she says she's confident she's found the right people.

Where to put them all has been another challenge. The company recently moved into a new 725-square-foot office space in a former U of T science building on College Street, an almost literal stone's throw from the lab where the 1DegreeBio was founded. "The space is so perfectly suited to our company," she says, "we've recycled the old science equipment into office furniture." And just months after moving in, the company is already expanding, negotiating the addition of another 500-square-feet of space to accommodate more contract staff as the company grows.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Alex Hodgson, CEO, 1DegreeBio

Search Engine Optimization innovators GShift Labs close $1.1 million funding round

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

One of Canada's hottest startups is entering a rapid growth phase as it institutes the serious marketing phase of its business plan. That's according to gShift Labs founder and CEO Krista LaRiviere, whose company was named startup of the year in 2010 by the Canadian Innovation Exchange.

GShift's initial funding of $500,000 last year from the MaRS incubator in downtown Toronto was more than tripled this month by new injections of capital: a $1.1 million investment from GrowthWorks and $500,000 from the federal government's ministry of economic development. "We've now been able to invest into hiring engineers as well as really building out our sales and marketing team," LaRiviere says. "When we closed the round with GrowthWorks, we were six people. We're now 12."

For gShift, which has currently attracted roughly 200 paying clients since launching in beta in May 2010, marketing is a particular challenge, because its product is creating a new market category in search engine optimization strategy-management software.

"We founded the company because we knew the SEO space was ripe for automation--there wasn't really a product that allowed people to track all the different data points and apply business intelligence into a reporting engine.... We really need to shift how people think."

Right now, when businesses think of SEO, they think automatically of hiring a consultant. "They don't think, 'Let me buy some software.'" But LaRiviere says that as the complexity of digital marketing expands, it's only a matter of time before the utility of an easy-to-use system that automates and provides cause-and-effects results measurement will become obvious to all.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Krista LaRiviere, CEO, gShift Labs

Toronto startup BuzzData brings social media tools to information sharing

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

"I started out to write a book about data literacy," says Pete Forde, co-founder and CTO of Toronto startup BuzzData, "to galvanize people to understand that data, as a democratic, free resource, could be used to create both good in the world and business value. That turned into a working principle." And that, says the web developer-turned-entrepreneur, turned into a company.

BuzzData, which had a soft launch roughly six weeks ago, sets out to allow people to share and work with data sets more effectively, improving on the traditional top-line presentation of spreadsheets and databases, while allowing direct and archived interaction between users. Already, with no formal marketing or advertising, the site has quietly attracted 1,800 core users to its free public version. These "data VIPs," as Forde calls them, are building a community the company hopes will demonstrate the utility of a premium collaboration product marketed to companies who work with data.

The project sprung out of a consulting job Forde and his firm Unspace were working on for an outside investor. He says their efforts began in earnest when a core team of three people, including co-founder and CEO Mark Opausky, started collaborating. Over the summer, BuzzData began hiring, staffing up its office near Queen and Spadina to employ 11 people. Their current staff size, Forde says, is expected to support the company as it scales up, with any future employment growth coming in customer support and logistics.

And the book? "You could say it's being written every day," Forde says. "There is still much to be written."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Pete Forde, co-founder and CTO, BuzzData

MaRS research and innovation hub to expand: Phase two construction will create 4,000 direct jobs

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The MaRS Discovery District, opened in 2005, has rapidly fulfilled its intended function as a hub of research and an accelerator of innovation—an incubator of dozens of start-up companies and a link between researchers, hospitals, universities, entrepreneurs, financiers and venture capitalists. Today, more than 2,300 people are directly employed by the various tenants housed at its College Street MaRS centre, and it recently announced an expansion that will see it almost double in square footage and make it, according to the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, "the largest urban innovation hub in the world."

The phase two construction—which was always part of the long-term strategy—was halted when the global economic crisis struck in 2008. Now it's back on, with committed tenants and provincial government financing, according to MaRS Discovery District CEO Ilse Treurnicht.

The construction, now underway and scheduled for completion in September 2013, will employ 4,000 workers. Information supplied by the office of the minister of innovation suggests the job gains will not all be temporary, either: after completion, 5,000 people are expected to work at the facility, including employees of anchor tenants Public Health Ontario and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research.

"Today, start-ups are blooming and growing across the GTA," Treurnicht writes. "These young, high-growth companies create the majority of new jobs in modern economies.... The expanded MaRS Centre will catalyze more startups and help grow companies that will generate thousands more knowledge-based jobs in the years ahead."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Sources: Ilse Treurnicht, CEO, MaRS Discovery District; Office of the Minister of Research and Innovation; Chris Stevenson
Communications Director, MaRS

Mississauga unveils 10-point plan to become centre of creativity and innovation

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Job one for the City of Mississauga is to "establish a Mississauga Innovation Leadership Alliance comprising leaders from the private sector, post-secondary institutions, and the city that can provide strategic direction, support and commitment to overseeing initiatives designed to strengthen the innovation economy in Mississauga," according to a report commissioned by the city and its Research, Innovation and Commercialization Centre (RIC).

The report, entitled "A 10-point Action Plan for Innovation in Mississauga," was unveiled late last month. Pam Banks of the RIC said in announcing the strategy that it will "get more of the Mississauga business community, in particular, involved in fast-tracking innovation" in Canada's sixth-largest city.

Thought of by some in downtown Toronto as a primarily suburban municipality, Mississauga has recently become a hub for the pharmaceuticals industry, among others. Despite this blossoming innovation culture, according to the report, the city still lacks "a meeting place to promote connectivity and a coherent approach to better capitalize on the post-secondary assets for training, education and R&D purposes."

The plans focuses on building a hub organization to connect business and academia, fostering research and development clusters, nurturing a talent stream to develop entrepreneurs and create jobs, and marketing the city as an innovation hotspot.

According to the RIC, meetings this month will examine how to begin implementing the strategy.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Jana Schilder for the Mississauga RIC Centre

Biopharmaceutical company Eisai to establish Canadian HQ in Mississauga with staff of 11

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Late last month, the provincial government and Esai Inc, a Japanese-based biopharmaceutical conglomerate, announced that the company will establish a Canadian headquarters in Mississauga. The expansion of Esai's operations will see the company invest $15 million in the region, supplemented by a provincial government grant of $2 million. What is now a one-person operation will add 11 new staff over the next five years.

Eisai first announced its expansion into Canada just over 15 months ago. Then, the company's chairman Hajime Shimizu said the Canadian operation would anchor an expansion of the Esai's marketing of its drugs in Canada as it embarked on a substantial expansion of its activity here. In a statement on the recent headquarters expansion announcement, Esai Canada president Takihiro Hirasawa said the company selected Mississauga as its headquarters because of "its exceptional talent pool, comprehensive research and clinical trial resources and unique global connections and partnerships."

The GTA centre will be conducting clinical trials and introducing the company's range of medications to Canada, including those to treat Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy and breast cancer.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Sources: Lauren Tedesco, Office of the Minister of Economic Development and Trade; Lynn Kenney, senior director, U.S. corporate communications for Eisai; Manufacturing Chemist

Expanding R&D into electric car battery system creates 102 new jobs at Dana's Oakville operation

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Just two years ago, a heat exchanger essential for the operation of lithium-ion batteries in hybrid and electric vehicles was developed in Oakville, Ontario, at the global battery R&D centre of Dana Holding Corporation. The exchanger is now featured in the Tesla Motors Sport, the Ford Focus EV and the Chevrolet Volt, as well as in new models from Hyundai and Kia.

Recently the company received a $2-million grant from the province of Ontario to fund ongoing development of such battery cooling systems, funding that the government and the company say will add 102 new staff to the company's existing team of 53. For its part, Dana expects to invest $37 million in expanding its Oakville research centre and its Cambridge, Ontario, manufacturing facility. It's also engaged in research projects with three Ontario universities.

"We're pleased to collaborate with the province of Ontario," stated Dwayne Matthews, president of the Power Technologies business at Dana, in a news release after the grant was announced. "Clean energy is a global need, and will require commitments from both public and private sectors to make alternative-energy vehicles more broadly available."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Sources: Lauren Tedesco, Office of the Minister of Economic Development and Trade; Dana Holding Corporation

Toronto washroom hygiene innovators Hygienna flush with $50,000 from Spin Master Innovation grant

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Yonge Street reported this spring that Canada's largest toy maker (and one of its fastest growing companies), Spin Master, had teamed up with the Canadian Youth Business Foundation to sponsor an innovation fund that would give recipient companies $50,000 and team them up with mentors to help their businesses grow.

Citing the "innovation, passion, integrity and outstanding character" of all the recipients, Spin Master CEO Ronnen Harary announced the eight recipients of grants from the fund. Among them was one Toronto-area company, Hygienna, founded by local entrepreneur Christopher Kang. The company is focused on design innovation in the personal hygiene field; its first product is a screw-top attachment for water bottles that turns them into portable bidets.

As Kang explains here, his company was inspired by the simple realization that for many people, going to the washroom, especially a public washroom, "can be a complicated and traumatic experience, so we're out to help them solve their problem."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Harold Chizick, VP of global communications and promotions, Spin Master Ltd.

Blu Trumpet launches app monetization platform, is staffing up

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

In the minds of many people, Google's purchase of Toronto startup BumpTop for a reported $35 million last year put the Toronto tech sector on the map, and also secured the position of Xtreme Labs (and its affiliated investment arm Extreme Venture Partners) as the big players in the local mobile software development industry.

So some excitement greeted the launch this month of a new venture by some of those familiar players--the new app-monetization platform Blu Trumpet is led by Nina Sodhi, the University of Waterloo alum and Harvard MBA who served as COO of BumpTop. And the venture is the first to emerge from Xtreme's partnership with New York-based IAC, Hatch Labs, which bills itself as an "entrepreneurial sandbox" for mobile products.

Blu Trumpet, with sales and administration offices in New York and development based at Xtreme's Yonge Street headquarters, has introduced an advertising mechanism for app developers that they claim users will enjoy rather than find annoying. "We call it it 'life after banners," says Sodhi. "It's an app discovery tool that app clients add to a nav bar, so users choose to navigate to it to find other apps from advertisers." Karthik Ramakrishnan, the product director who heads the development team in Toronto, says that early metrics show more than 10 per cent of users come back to the app discovery tool again and again, "so we know it is adding value for the users." Which, Sodhi and Ramakrishnan agree, makes it all the more valuable for both advertisers and host apps.

Sodhi says that Blu Trumpet currently has a team of four working in Toronto and two in New York, and expects to double its staff her and perhaps triple it in New York by the end of the year. She says that originally the company's plans had not called for basing all development work here, but that the rich pool of talent that's available here, and that has been shown to be "willing to stick things out" with start-up companies, made the decision obvious. Sodhi attributes the bustling scene here to both the presence of great engineering university programs in the area and to government programs that support innovative startups. Meanwhile, Ramakrishnan says that prominent "exits" like the sale of Bumptop last year have created an appetite for startup life among local developers. "People are interested in startups again--the risk factor is mitigated by the coolness, the desire to be in on the ground floor of something exciting," he says.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Nina Sodhi, CEO, Blu Trumpet; Karthik Ramakrishnan, Product Director, Blu Trumpet

Polar Mobile grows rapidly with global expansion announcements, hiring "constantly" now

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Last year, Toronto-based application developer Polar Mobile doubled the size of its workforce as it grew quickly to serve a roster of corporate clients. In November, company spokesperson Jon Zifkin said it was a matter of the company having built a solid development foundation upon which it was now rapidly building. "The immediate future is pretty steady growth as we continue expanding our reach globally," he said.

Those words appear prescient on the heels of two recent Polar announcements. On August 17, Polar unveiled a deal with Nokia that will see it develop 300 or more applications for big-name corporate clients for use on the Nokia phones. In the announcement, a Nokia spokesperson cited Polar's ability to scale up to meet the demands of the world's top-tier brands as a key asset in the deal. One week later, Polar announced the opening of an office in Dubai alongside a deal with a major Middle Eastern phone manufacturer to build more than 100 apps to serve the region. Once again, the company's ability to scale quickly was cited as a decisive factor.

Polar spokesperson Sydney Strader says that as the announcements suggest, the investment in a scalable platform for apps is now paying off. "We can now turn out apps for big clients as quickly as two weeks, and that's across every single smartphone platform, as well as tablets," she says. "Growing to become a large global player is certainly the intent. Every year now we've seen growth around the world, and we continue to expand in those markets.

As you might expect, the company is continuing to hire at a quick rate. "Our team is pretty much constantly growing now," Strader says of the 40-employee company. "There are lots of open positions, and we expect that to be the case going into the future."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Sources: Jon Zifkin, Director of Business Development, Polar Mobile; Sydney Strader, Communications, Polar Mobile

Bionik Labs brings mind-controlled prosthetics from sci-fi to reality, hires 14 in 2 months

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

It might be the holy grail of the prosthetics world: an artificial limb that moves in response to the thoughts of the person wearing it. And such a device has been developed by two students at Ryerson, Thiago Caires and Michal Prywata of startup Bionik Labs. The young company--less than a year old--has drawn attention from major media outlets around the world, including, locally, CBC, Global and the Toronto Star.

Prywata says they are motivated to develop medical devices that extend and enhance the lives of those suffering--they're seeking out flaws or gaps in current medical technology that they can address. Their first prototype, a robotic forearm controlled by the brainwaves of the wearer, uses brainwave technology that's already been developed for video games and fairly basic mechanical moving parts. The pair hope to eventually market the device for less than $20,000.

Another product they have under development will likely hit the market sooner, Prywata says. They have developed a mobility device that will allow paralyzed people to walk, and the company is currently seeking manufacturing facilities and regulatory approvals to commercialize the technology.

They built their invention while both were students at Ryerson, working out of Thiago's home. Since unveiling it, they have moved into the business incubator at Ryerson's DMZ, and have begun developing other products. Plans include a prosthetic hand and an artificial lung, as well as innovative surgical procedures.

Prywata says that the company is growing quickly. "We're up to 16 employees now, and this has all happened in the past two months. This spring, we didn't even have a company yet, now we have a lot of people working to build a company." He says the founders have received quite a few offers from venture capitalists already, but are waiting to further develop the company before accepting outside investment.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Sources: Michal Prywata, Bionik Labs; Toronto Star; Ryerson DMZ

Owens-Illionois to hire 20 with innovative retooling of Brampton plant

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

In a move that company vice-president Ryan Modlin heralded as signalling "a vibrant future for glass packaging in Ontario" Owens-Illinois (O-I) announced earlier this month that it would be undertaking an innovative update of its Brampton glass manufacturing facility. Company spokesperson Beth Peery says the plant will be seeing $29 million in updates and innovation upgrades to add capabilities.

The updates are to add new capabilities to the plant's product offerings, make the building more sustainable and, it was announced, would add 20 new jobs to the existing staff of 314 as part of a financing deal with the provincial government. Peery says that since those numbers were agreed to and announced, the company has already exceeded hired more than twice as many new staff as had been expected.

The global glass manufacturer's GTA factory produces glass bottles for the LCBO, among other things, and the changes at the plant should add the capability to create more colours and styles of bottles ncedin line with sustainability efforts to create more lightweight packaging. The company will also update the heating at the facility to make it more energy efficient.

The move was heralded by spokespeople for the provincial government -- who are preparing for an election -- in a statement crediting favourable tax benefits to the company and an $8.8 million loan to the expansion effort.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Sources: Beth Peery, O-I; Lauren Tedesco, Ontario Ministry of Economic Development

Pharmaceutical giant Roche Canada to invest $190 million in Mississauga R&D facility, hire 200

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Pharmaceutical manufacturer Roche Canada will invest $190 million to construct a new research and development facility in Mississauga, the company announced last week. According to information sent in an email by Corporate Affairs Manager Mike Vesik, "The Mississauga site will coordinate the execution of global clinical trials both within the Roche affiliate network that support more than 60 countries world-wide, and as outsourced trials working with Contract Research Organizations."

"We are extremely pleased to bring global Pharmaceutical Development opportunities to Ontario," Roche Canada President and CEO Ronnie Miller said in his announcement. "We have built a respected clinical expertise within the Roche global network, and this new capability will firmly establish Roche Canada, and the province of Ontario, as a global hub for life sciences and biopharmaceuticals."

The facility will be one of six global research centres for the company, developing new medicines, taking them through testing and trials and bringing them to market. The company estimates the facility will create 200 new jobs through direct employment. Vesik says that the jobs be for both scientists to lead and manage clinical trials and for support staff, and adds that the talent pool in the GTA and the area's school's is one of the key assets of the plant's location.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Mike Vesik, Roche Canada