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Yaletown Venture Partners adds Alberta Partners

Yesterday Yaletown Venture Partners announced the addition of Alberta-based Evan Hu, Terry Sydoryk, and Brad Zumalt as three new Executive Limited Partners (“ELPs”).

Yaletown ELPs are individual investors in Yaletown-managed funds who are actively engaged in their local technology communities and provide advice and business contacts to Yaletown’s principals and portfolio companies.

Headquartered in Vancouver with offices in Calgary and Seattle, Yaletown is backed by leading institutional investors and by a network of successful technology entrepreneurs, executives, and angel investors. Founded in 2002, Yaletown is led by a team that brings together an extensive network of industry relationships and more than 120 years collective experience building and financing technology companies.

More on the three new Alberta ELPs after the jump.

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Canadian-founded Uptake acquired by Groupon

Silicon Valley based Travel search engine Uptake was acquired by Groupon yesterday.

AllThingsD reported that Uptake had been acquired by for something in the “teens of millions” (between $10 and $20). The company raised roughly $14 million from venture capital investors, so it was basically a break even transaction. TechCrunch is reporting this transaction as an "acqhire" with the Uptake team being integrated into Groupon's Palo Alto office and the existing service being shut down.

But why is Techvibes covering this acquisition?

Uptake co-founder Yen Lee is a Canadian and a C100 member and we got a chance to sit down and chat with him about Uptake during C100's 48 Hours in the Valley. Check out the video after the jump.

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CBC's Newest Dragon Raising $100 Million Fund For Digital Startups

Rookie Dragons' Den investor Bruce Croxon is ready to invest in Canada's digital startups and announced today that he is bringing other investors on board his new $100 Million fund.

Croxon co-founded online dating service Lavalife in 1988 — well before social networking took hold. After the company is sold for $170 Million, he built Vida, a chain of holistic spas on the West Coast and started venture capital firm Round 13.

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Speakerfile CEO Peter Evans Talks About Participating in the CTA Initiative in New York City

Photo of Peter Evans

As a former CMO, executive speaker and organizer of events in the technology and healthcare sectors, Peter Evans, co-founder and CEO of Toronto startup Speakerfile knew that there must be a better way to connect corporate speakers to the $106 billion events industry. He was fascinated by the inefficiencies of the event organizer and speaker matchmaking process.

Together with co-founder Robert Carter, Evans developed an online platform that could help event organizers and media around the world connect better with an ever-expanding ecosystem of speakers and experts.

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Toronto Film Producers Launch Guidestones – the First Interactive Online Thriller

Guidestones LogoIf you’re a fan of the popular novel and film The Davinci Code, then you’ll definitely want to check out the first-ever interactive online thriller called Guidestones which launched in mid-February. Produced and distributed by Toronto-based companies iThentic and 3 o’clock TV, the 50-episode series (total running time of 120 minutes) was created and directed by Jay Ferguson.

Shot in Canada, the US and India, Guidestones combines scripted drama and documentary-style narrative. The lead characters, played by an all-Canadian cast, stumble upon an unsolved murder and discover a cover-up hiding a global conspiracy.

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Jobber raises Seed Round for Cloud-Based Field Service Management

Edmonton's Jobber announced today that it has raised a seed financing round led by Vancouver superangel Boris Wertz of W Media Ventures. Additional investors include Berlin's Point Nine Capital and Vancouver tech entrepreneurs Vik Khanna and Pankaj Agarwal.

Jobber will use this funding to expand its team, aggressively develop additional features and functionality, and to continue improving the user experience.

Jobber allows field service businesses such as landscapers, painters and contract cleaners to easily manage their businesses from any web browser.

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TeamBuy raises $5 Million and settles down with Kids & Baby and Home categories

Toronto's TeamBuy.ca announced this morning that they have closed a $5 Million financing round from existing shareholders and will be using the funding to expand newly launched Kids & Baby and Home categories.

In July of 2011 TeamBuy raised $7 Million from an undisclosed institutional investor.

“We’ve re-imagined the daily deal business model to fit a customer who is demanding more comprehensive and customized shopping,” says Ghassan Halazon, CEO, TeamBuy.ca. “Our current vertical offerings already account for nearly 35 per cent of our business and with the launch of the new Kids & Baby and Home sections on TeamBuy, we anticipate that this will rise to at least half of our overall product mix in the year ahead.”

Venture Capital Activity Way Up, But Still Far From Pre-Recession Levels

Venture capital and private equity in Canada grew again last year, up for the third year in a row, says Canada’s Venture Capital & Private Equity Association and research partner Thomson Reuters. But while the volume of activity—235—was the highest ever, the dollar value still came up short of pre-recession levels.

2011 may have been out 2007's 229 transactions, but in that year, over $26 billion was invested. Last year, that number was only $11.5 billion. Still, it's up from 2009 and 2010, when the recession limited transactions to just $5.2 and $6.2 billion respectively.

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