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VC-funded Recon Instruments Named 2012 Edison Award Winner

Vancouver's Recon Instruments has been named a 2012 Edison Award Winner for MOD Live, the world’s first and only Heads-up Display (HUD) for alpine goggles. Recon won the Bronze Award in the Photography/Imaging category. Named after Thomas Edison, an Edison Award is one of the highest accolades a company can receive in the name of innovation and business.

In January Recon Instruments raised a $10 million Series A round from a group led by the venture capital firm Vanedge Capital with participation from Kopin Corporation.

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Securing Investment: How to Counter Common Startup Mistakes

As an investor in several Canadian startups, the key to securing financing is about putting the puzzle pieces together for the investment partner. It’s true that Canadian investors are generally more conservative than technology investment firms in Silicon Valley or New York, and that early stage financing may seem limited in relation to our stateside counterparts, but that doesn’t mean Canadian investors don’t exist.

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HootSuite CEO Puts His Money Where His Tweets are: Ryan Holmes Invests in Chirpify

Late last month, Vancouver's HootSuite closed a financing round with OMERS Ventures, who bought a $20 million ownership stake in Vancouver-based HootSuite via a secondary purchase from the company’s existing shareholders.

The financing pegged HootSuite's valuation at over $200 million. But more important, it helped CEO Ryan Holmes and his co-founders and early investors "de-risk" and refocus on their plans to build HootSuite into a billion dollar company.

Looks like the team isn't sitting on their recent windfall. Rather, they're putting their hard-earned money back to work in the Pacific Northwest ecosystem.

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BDC Venture Capital Backs Accelerators Across Canada With Follow-On Funding

BDC Venture Capital announced today that it will issue up to $6 million in convertible notes over two years to graduates of Montreal's FounderFuel.

Some 40 young enterprises from all over the country in the web, mobile, software as a service (SaaS), and gaming fields, will each be eligible for a $150,000 BDC convertible note upon their successful completion of FounderFuel's 12-week, mentor-driven business "boot camp".

The investment is part of BDC Venture Capital's larger commitment towards accelerators across the country. Vancouver's GrowLab and Toronto's Extreme Startups has also announced that a $150K BDC convertible note in follow-on funding will be available to successful graduates of their programs.

Startup Visa Program for Canada to be Announced Today?

11:30am EST Update: News Release - Minister Kenney launches consultations for a new “start-up visa” for immigrant entrepreneurs

According to an advisory issued by Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's office yesterday, the Canadian government is expected to announce in Toronto today the next step in launching a Startup Visa program.

While the details are still vague, Kenney and Dragon’s Den TV star Kevin O’Leary are apparently scheduled to make an announcement today regarding a new system aimed at identifying and speeding the path for "high value innovators."

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Pushing $4 Million, Allerta's Pebble Becomes Most-Funded Kickstarter Campaign Ever

We've been following Pebble closely since it launched a seemingly normal Kickstarter campaign one week ago. But after reaching its original goal of $100,000 in just two hours, we knew this was going to be a legendary run.

Pebble, a smartwatch co-created by the Canadian entrepreneur who founded Waterloo-born Allerta (also the maker of inPulse, a BlackBerry watch), has seen its crowdfunding campaign soar off the charts. After hitting $1 million in a day, it hit $2 million in two days. Then $3 million, at which point we wondered - is crowdfunding the new venture capitalism?

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PlentyofFish Founder Invests in Dating Industry Disrupting Facebook App

Two months ago PlentyofFish Founder Markus Frind declared that the Web is dead and that the future of online dating is mobile. 

Since Frind hasn't figured out a way to monetize mobile yet he's been diversifying his portfolio by investing millions into other web properties with another $10 million set aside for acquisitions and investments in 2012.

Today TechCrunch reported on one of those investments and it looks like Frind may have found a winner.

TheComplete.me announced a $1.2 million seed round today from Intel Capital, PlentyofFish, CrunchFund, and a list of prominent angels. TheComplete.me is led by Brian Bowman, a former vice president of product at Match.com.

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Pebble Raises $3 Million from 21,000 People in 5 Days. Is Crowdfunding the New Venture Capitalism?

Last week, we wrote that Pebble—a smartwatch developed by Canadian Entrepreneur Eric Migicovsky—raised $1 million from 7,300 backers in just 24 hours on Kickstarter. Then we went on to report that, by the end of day two, that number had doubled to $2 million from 14,400 backers. This, despite the campaign's original goal of only $100,000, and the fact that the campaign still doesn't end for over a month.

While the pledging has slowed somewhat, Pebble has now cracked the next major milestone: $3 million. It took only five days to reach this number, 5,000% of the original goal.

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