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GrowLab Matures with Announcement of Second Cohort

Two months ago, Techvibes reported that Vancouver's newest superangel, Mike Edwards, would be taking over the helm of Vancouver accelerator GrowLab. We warned Vancouver's startup community to buckle their seatbelts and prepare for "massive action" with Edwards in the Executive Director role.

Techvibes sat down with Edwards this morning to learn more about his first big GrowLab announcement—the cohort selected for their Spring 2012 program which kicks off next week.

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Bruce Croxon: 'Canadian Entrepreneurs are as Smart or Smarter Than Anywhere in World'

Bruce Croxon says that Canadian entrepreneurs are "as smart, or smarter, than anywhere in the world."

The Lavalife founder and star of Dragons' Den told the CBC this week that he finds it "ridiculous" that Canadian tech startups feel forced to move to Silicon Valley to grow: "Canadian companies go to the States to get their money or languish on the shelf because there isn't the support here," he fumed.

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Toronto's Extreme Startups Reveals First Five Companies [Updated]

Toronto-based accelerator (not an incubator, like some misinformed people suggest) Extreme Startups has selected five companies for the inaugurual round of its program.

The organization saw applications from companies in 18 countries spanning five continents, according to TechCrunch—but ultimately settled with an all-Canadian lineup. Three startups are based in Extreme's hometown of Toronto, while one is from Edmonton and one is from Ottawa.

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The Biggest Challenge for Tech Startups? Recruitment and Retention [Infographic]

When you think of the formidable challenges tech startup CEOs face, a few obvious things come to mind, such as raising capital from poker-faced investors and trying to sell your brand new product to fleeting consumers. It's hard to build a company from scratch. But if the saying that a business is simply the people behind it holds true, then perhaps it's not surprising that PwC found CEOs' biggest challenge these days is recruiting and retaining talent.

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Toronto's Engagio Evolves into 'Social Conversations Network,' Adds Chrome Extension to Make Gmail Social

Toronto startup Engagio is becoming what it calls a "Social Conversations Network," which combines "the convenience of the social inbox utility with the power of the network via a new Engagement Discovery Dashboard." The dashboard reveals friends' conversations across whichever social networks and commenting communities they participate in.

“Users will be drawn to the Engagio dashboard because it reveals the conversations that their friends are engaging in from across the spectrum of the social web," says William Mougayar, the CEO and founder of Engagio. "It’s an engagement stream that is quite addictive.”

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Next Stop: Startup Canada National Tour Showcases Toronto's Top Entrepreneurs

Startup Canada will be showcasing Toronto’s top entrepreneurial talent this week as part of a two-week celebration of entrepreneurship in Ontario, the third stop in Startup Canada’s six-month National Tour. The Tour, which launched in March, is travelling across the country to promote entrepreneurship, identify key challenges facing Canadian entrepreneurs, and ignite new community-led solutions to those challenges.

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Old School Canadian Taxi Company Launches Mobile App to Compete with Next-Gen Uber, Winston Startups

The taxi industry hasn't changed much over time. But with a sudden rush of competition from the likes of Uber and Canada's own Winston, their hand has been forced: innovate or perish.

Starting today, Torontonians looking for a lift can order a traditional taxi with two taps on their smartphone. Beck Taxi is claiming to be Toronto’s first Taxi company to introduce a mobile taxi app.

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Uber Picking Up in Vancouver with Secret Testing Phase

Last month, Techvibes reported that San Francisco based on-demand private driving service Uber was launching in Vancouver.

Looks like we're on step closer with a secret testing phase beginning in the city—and you probably won't be surprised to hear who Rider One was.

HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes and an entourage grabbed a Uber signature black town car in Railtown.

Unfortunately the famous HootSuite Owl was nowhere to be seen.

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Toronto's Uberflip Dominates Google Chrome Store

Toronto-born Uberflip, a cloud-based PDF enhancement tool with embeddable social widgets like YouTube videos, finished 4th at the Road to Banff Canada 3.0 competition. It has since held a high ranking in recent weeks in the Google Chrome Store’s Marketing & Analytics section.

Yesterday, Facebook launched the App Center. Facebook’s App Center will allow all platforms to be listed whether they be iOS, Android, Blackberry, Mango, or Web. Uberflip’s COO Randy Frisch says they are working on that now. As mobile app stores have been incredibly popular, we're now beginning to see web stores beyond e-commerce.

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