There’s no such thing as a summer break for startups! This August, there was a lot of activity and news coverage for our MaRS ventures, as well as the closing of a couple of large funding rounds.
Capital news
- MaRS Health & Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Venture Services client and MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund portfolio client Figure 1 raised a $4 million round! Read the coverage in the Wall Street Journal’s “Venture Capital Dispatch.”
Noteworthy news
- Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited EnerMotion‘s Arctic Circle Hybrid Power and Energy Recovery (HYPER) technology installation. On August 24, during his Northern Passage tour, Stephen Harper visited Cambridge Bay in Nunavut to get a first-hand glimpse at EnerMotion’s HYPER technology. EnerMotion is demonstrating HYPER’s waste heat recovery benefits as part of the innovative ACS-150 utility solution for remote and off-grid communities.
Media coverage
- American media outlets are still all over InteraXon.
o Newsweek: “Muse headband can read your brainwaves using EEG”
o CNN Tech: “Can this brain-sensing headband give you serenity?”
- MaRS Health venture Knixwear was featured in the Wall Street Journal: “Kickstarter closes the ‘funding gap’ for women”
- Figure 1 was featured on CBC’s “The Exchange with Amanda Lang” and in the Calgary Herald.
- SunFarmer was featured in the Guardian: “Rent to own solar systems hope to prevent blackouts in Nepal’s hospitals”
- MaRS ICT venture bubl was featured in several media outlets:
o Gizmodo: “The Bublcam: live 360-degree video with no blind spots”
o Fast Company: “A 360-degree camera with no blind spots lets anyone capture every angle of a moment”
o Financial Post: “The future of video is 360 degrees, COO of Toronto-based bubl says”
- Rent Frock Repeat appeared in in the Montreal Gazette: “Employee loyalty dropping off as workers question their value in organizations”
- Tiny Hearts was featured in the Toronto Standard: “Meet Tiny Hearts, the Toronto app studio that’s one of Apple’s favourites”
- MaRS Cleantech venture RainGrid was interviewed by CP24 on August 11 about what they can do to cope with stormwater impacts on local properties. RainGrid also presented a paper to the American Public Works Association conference on August 17.