Canadian Startups Share Stories of Success and Failure at Mesh 2012

Yesterday marked Day 2 of the Mesh12 Conference in Toronto, Ontario. There were some inspiring and passionate presentations during the morning session, with speakers like Rebecca MacKinnon, author of The Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom, Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, David Weinberger, co-author of Too Big to Know and The Cluetrain Manifesto, and Canadian Dr. Michael Evans, founder of the New Health Design Lab.

Mesh12 Conference organizers Mark Evans and Stuart MacDonald moderated an afternoon breakout Q&A session entitled “Tales from the Trenches. Stories from Startups” which boasted an impressive list of Canadian startup founder speakers including: Aliza Pulver, Andy Yang, Evgeny Tchebotarev, Dups Wijayawardhana and Heather Payne.

Below are their stories – from getting started to surviving the twists and turns of running a business:

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Toronto's SecureKey Raises $30 Million from Intel, Visa, MasterCard, Rogers, and Telus

Toronto's SecureKey Technologies announced this morning that it has raised $30 million in growth capital to fund the commercial rollout of its innovative online and mobile authentication solutions.  

The financing round was led by Intel Capital and included new investors Visa Inc., MasterCard, Discover Financial Services, Rogers Venture Partners LLC, and TELUS Corporation.

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Success of Bait Cars Inspires Laptop and Bicycle Spinoffs (That May Even Get a Reality TV Show)

Bait cars have been so successful in capturing thieves in BC that the system has inspired spinoffs for bait computers and bait bicycles. In fact, a team of youth in Vancouver is developing a reality television show based on a bicycle with a GPS-broadcasting device hidden inside the frame.

Meanwhile, RCMP in the Vancouver suburb of Maple Ridge this week announced the recovery of four laptops stolen from local schools, thanks to tracking devices installed by the school district. It was the technology's first real-world test and passed with flying colours.

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Instagram Clone: Facebook Launches Mobile Photo App for iPhone

With all the negative news swirling regarding Facebook's IPO and their inability to monetize mobile, the multi-millionaire Facebook developers have kept on working.

Today Facebook launched Camera, a new iOS app that enhances the Facebook photos mobile experience. With Camera, users can now view just photos from their friends in one feed, share multiple photos at once, and customize pictures with captions and filters before posting.

Considering Facebook's recent billion dollar purchase of Instagram, today's launch may come as a surprise.

Camera is an independent photo application with a few features extremely similar to what users of Instagram are already used to using. However with Camera users will not be able to share within the app only (as Instagram can do) or to other social networks all at once.

Camera is all about Facebook.

Camera will be available for the iPhone starting today and can be downloaded for free from the App Store.