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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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Entrepreneur Returns from Silicon Valley After 14 Years: 'Vancouver Has Phenomenal Talent for Startups'

Yen Lee has worked in Silicon Valley since 1996. But after 14 years in the Valley—working for a variety of companies, include City Search and Yahoo—the Vancouverite is returning home.

Yen eventually ended his menial jobs to found Uptake, a startup that offers travel advice to users base on friend recommendations. His company was acquired by Groupon earlier this year. Even though he was a co-founder, Yen isn't sticking around for Uptake's integration into the group buying giant. He's moving back to Vancouver.

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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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Annual Canadian VC Conference to Give Free BlackBerry PlayBook to Every Attendee

The organizers of the CVCA 2012 Annual Conference announced today all registered conference attendees will receive a complimentary BlackBerry PlayBook.

BlackBerry PlayBooks will be given to each attendee when they arrive at registration at the CVCA 2012 Annual Conference in Montreal. The PlayBooks will have the newest OS 2.0, be wi-fi enabled and pre-loaded with the CVCA conference mobile application.

It costs $1,600 to attend the CVCA 2012 Annual Conference and the 16GB  BlackBerry PlayBook retails for $200.

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C100 Announces Dates, Speakers and Call for Applications June's 48hrs in the Valley

The C100 will be hosting their next 48hrs in the Valley in June and it looks like it will be another fantastic event.

48hrs in the Valley is the C100 flagship mentorship program put on in conjunction with the Canadian Consulate of San Francisco and Palo Alto. Twice a year they invite 20 of Canada's most promising startups to the Silicon Valley for two days of mentorship, workshops, investor meetings, strategic partner visits and networking.

Techvibes was lucky to participate in the October 2010 edition of 48 hours in the Valley and we had a chance to chat with C100 Co-Founder Chris Albinson. Video after the jump.

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Buckle Up: Communitech Puts Canadian Innovation into Hyperdrive with $30 Million Fund for Tech Startups

Waterloo-based Communitech, a regional hub for the commercialization of technologies, has launched a new program called Hyperdrive. This initiative is a $30-million wallet for high-potential technology startups in Canada.

Backed by investment firms, superangels, service providers, strategic partners, and mentors, Hyperdrive will provide startups with up to $700,000 in capital each—that's a bare minimum of 43 companies that will go through the program. Likely though, many, many more will actually go through, considering most tech startups need only a few thousand to put the key in the ignition.

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Canadian Startup Reflects on Being Acquired by Groupon

Last September Techvibes reported that Groupon had acquired a Vancouver startup. At the time we didn't have any details on the transaction but our source ended up being correct.

Groupon announced in December the pilot launch of Groupon Scheduler - an online appointment service giving merchants an easy way to manage their schedules and accept bookings directly from consumers.

Groupon Scheduler is based on technology from Vancouver's OpenCal, a startup founded in 2009 by Arash Shiva and Simon Vallee and officially acquired by Groupon in September 2011.

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Canada Gets a New, $100-Million Cleantech Venture Capital Fund in Ontario

Ontario is welcoming a new $100-million cleantech venture capital fund. The fund is a joint venture of Sail Venture Partners and Stifel Nicolaus Canada.

The fund will invest in companies with "innovative, ready-for-market products across the clean-tech sector, including energy, water and green innovations," according to an official document. The fund is backed by Sustainable Development Technology Canada, which hopes the fund will grow companies and create jobs in Ontario.

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