Join us for the “entrepreneurship@UBC Seed Accelerator Competition” on October 20th, at which five new ventures from the UBC community will be pitching to become the first recipients of investments between $25k and $100k from the entrepreneurship@UBC Seed Accelerator fund.
A cornerstone of entrepreneurship@UBC, the Seed Accelerator is a venture fund owned and operated by UBC for the purpose of investing in the next generation of entrepreneurs. It seeks out very early stage business opportunities founded by UBC students, faculty, staff or alumni who have graduated within the last three years. A unique partnership between the BC Innovation Council, UBC alumni and the University, the Seed Accelerator fund is capitalized with donations from alumni and matching contributions from BCIC.
In September, 39 companies submitted business plans as part of the competition to kick off the initial round of investments. Our judging panel, chaired by Haig Farris and comprised of seasoned Venture Capitalists and entrepreneurs, reviewed the submissions and has narrowed down the list to 5 finalists. On October 20th, the five finalists will present a summary of their plans to the panel of judges and the audience, and the judges will make investment offers to one or more companies.
Presenting Companies:
Aeos Biomedical
Aeos Biomedical is an early stage medical device company. Their lead product, Target Tape, is a disposable adhesive tape with radiopaque locational markings, used with medical imaging. Target Tape is applied to the patient’s skin over the area of interest. The locational markings then appear on the medical scan image. When Target Tape is removed, it leaves behind an ink imprint of the locational markings, allowing the doctor to correlate and localize between the scan image and the patient’s skin. The two founders are alumni from Applied Science and the Sauder School of Business. They conceived of the Target Tape product as part of the 09/10 New Venture Design program. www.aeosbiomedical.com
Dynamic Monitoring Technology Corporation
Dynamic Monitoring Technology Corporation is a private company specialized in machine health monitoring systems. Their lead product, DyMoShovel, is an intelligent shovel health monitoring system used in cable shovels operating in open pit mines, and provides fault diagnosis, failure forecast and prevention, visual and audio feedback to the operator, optimized maintenance schedule and real time analysis of cable shovel performance. The founders and management team are comprised of a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, a PhD Candidate in Electrical Engineering at UBC, and an MBA Candidate from the UBC Sauder School of Business. http://dy-mo.com/
Precision Nanosystems
Precision Nanosystems is developing innovative solutions for the production of nanoparticle delivery systems for use in laboratory research and drug development. The founding team are faculty and alumni in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology department at UBC. http://precisionnanosystems.com/
RentGeek
RentGeek is a personalized home rental site that integrates lifestyle needs, distance calculator, neighborhood information, and browse listings all in one place and makes smart recommendations as to which neighborhood fits your lifestyle. The founders and management team include recent alumni from the Sauder School of Business and Faculty of Applied Science. www.rentgeek.com
Wishtag Solutions
WishTag Solutions brings the features and advantages of e-commerce directly into brick and mortar stores. Through use of near-field communication (NFC) and smartphone technologies we turn traditional product placements into web-connected, interactive displays that retailers may use to provide product-specific information and sales assets directly to consumers while they are in-store. Activated by close proximity to a desired product, the WishTag application launches automatically and re-brands itself to each visited store, ensuring continuity of the shopping experience. Beyond sales growth and an improved customer shopping experience, we also offer retailers valuable real-time information on consumer buying habits and preferences to help them optimize their marketing mix and maximize shelf space. WishTag has strong roots at UBC with two of the three founders being MBA candidates from the Sauder School of Business.
Please join us for this exciting event:
- Location: Room 222, West Mall Swing Space, 2175 West Mall, UBC
- Date: Thursday October 20th, 2011
- Time: 5:30 – 7:30pm
Judging Panel
Haig Farris
A pioneer of the venture capital industry in Canada, Haig co-founded Ventures West in 1968 and spent twenty-five years working to establish the venture capital industry in Canada. Since retiring from the firm he founded, Haig has become one of the most active and successful technology angel investors on the West Coast. He has been instrumental in the creation, growth, and success of dozens of technology companies and careers spanning four decades. Haig has served as co-founder, chair, and director of many high-profile companies, university and industry associations, and has been honoured by the Science Council of BC and the BC Technology Industries Association with awards for lifetime achievement and contribution to technology on Canada’s West Coast. He holds a B.A. (Economics & English) University of British Columbia, a Law Degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from UBC.
Laurie Wallace
Laurie is a serial entrepreneur who has, to date, launched and led two successful technology companies in the digital media and wireless sectors. Currently, Laurie is Executive Chair of PartnerPedia, a provider of web-based channel enablement solutions. Previously, Laurie co-founded and led online casual game developer FlyOver which was acquired by Vivendi Games in 2006, and co-founded Datum Telegraphic, a designer of semiconductors for the wireless data base station market. Acquired by PMC-Sierra for over $200 million in 2000 generating one of the highest returns ever in BC for an angel-backed company, Datum became PMC-Sierra’s wireless products division. Laurie led PMC-Sierra’s wireless marketing initiatives throughout Asia, Europe and North America until his departure in 2003. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Laurie worked in systems engineering, sales and executive management with industry leaders MPR Teltech, IBM and Apple.
Moe Kermani
Moe is a former Vice President of NetApp Inc. (NTAP:NASDAQ), a leading provider of enterprise data storage solutions. Prior to that Moe was President and CEO of Bycast Inc., the world leader in storage virtualization software for large scale digital archives and storage clouds. Bycast was acquired by NetApp in the spring of 2010. Moe has extensive experience working with entrepreneurial companies and taking to market leading-edge technology solutions. Moe currently serves on the board of directors of the British Columbia Technology Industry Association. Moe holds a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in physics from the University of British Columbia. He is a recipient of the Business in Vancouver Forty under 40 award and was named the BC Technology Industry Association’s Person of the Year for 2011.
Steve Hnatiuk
Steve has been active in the development and financing of emerging technology companies for more than 20 years. He co-founded Yaletown Venture Partners in 2001 and was active in building the firm and its portfolio until 2010. Steve led Yaletown’s early-stage investments in Partnerpedia, Genologics, and Mixpo – companies which are rapidly growing category leaders today. Steve’s private investments have included successes such as ActiveState, acquired by Sohpos in 2004, and Bycast, acquired by NetApp in 2010. Prior to co-founding Yaletown, Steve started and built TD Bank’s technology financing group in BC where he backed a portfolio of more than 40 emerging technology companies during the 1990s. Steve began his career as a software engineer with Accenture and served as an executive in the Technology & Entertainment group at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He is active on the boards of several private companies and is Vice President of the board of directors for Canada’s Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) – which represents 130 firms managing more than $75 billion in private investment capital. Steve is a Charter Member of C100 – a Silicon Valley based organization dedicated to supporting Canadian technology entrepreneurship and investment and he is Co-Chair of the editorial board of Canadian Private Capital magazine. In 2011, Steve served as Chair of the Canadian Private Equity & Venture Capital Annual conference – one of North America’s largest gatherings of private equity investment professionals.
Eric Winsborrow
Eric has over 20 years of senior level experience in high technology companies out of Silicon Valley. Eric is currently Executive VP and GM Commercial Solutions for ZanttZ, Inc, a Yaletown Venture Partners and Silicon Valley seed funded cyber security company creating solutions for the US Government. Eric was VP of Product Marketing for McAfee, where he conceived and executed the most successful launch in company history, Total Protection solutions. He ran product management for Symantec’s flagship enterprise client and server security, a $450M portfolio, and ran product management for Cisco’s Unified Communications Software Business Unit in the early days VoIP technology, amongst other Director level positions for VOIP and mobility solutions at Avaya and Nortel. Eric also has extensive startup experience. He was Chief Marketing Officer for a Sequoia Capital and Austin Ventures startup, Sipera Systems; CMO for Layer 7 Technologies; Executive Director at Sygate Technologies (acquired for $200M+ by Symantec) as well as executive positions at valley startups such as Cloudmark and Octel (acquired by Lucent for $4B). Eric conducted his undergraduate studies in Engineering Physics and Economics at McMaster University in Canada, and completed his MBA in International Business and Marketing at IIST in Japan.
Don Enns
Don Enns has been a leader in British Columbia’s life sciences industry for over 25 years, most recently as President and CEO of CANTEST Ltd., a BC-headquartered global organization providing professional analytical and clinical services in support of environmental quality, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and food safety industries as well as related projects for business and government. Through inspired leadership, impressive growth and industry-leading business practices, Mr. Enns helped the organization earn a spot amongst the 50 Best Managed Companies in Canada and to be recognized as one of BC’s 25 Best Companies to work for. Don is a director of numerous local for-profit companies as well as several non-profit organizations involved with national standardization, trade, education, community affairs, and public health. He has overseen expansion into the European and Southeast Asian markets; been responsible for merger & acquisition activity; and consulted for international agencies such as the UN Development Programme. He currently serves as a Director or Committee Advisor to Genome British Columbia, the World Wildlife Fund and two UBC faculties amongst other organizations. Mr. Enns received his MBA from UBC in 1987 and his Bachelor of Science Chemistry from TWU in 1982.
Victor Jones
Mr. Jones has over thirty years experience in senior executive and board positions in public mineral exploration and technology companies. His roles include leadership of financings and company turn-arounds, initially for a leading BC venture capital company. He has been active on projects across North America and Africa on financings and negotiations of joint ventures and property acquisitions. In 2006 he was part of the team on a $45 million financing and listing of a South African platinum company on the TSX and AIM. He was instrumental in the sale of Great Quest’s Kenieba project to Avion Gold Corp. Mr. Jones received both his B.Sc. (1971) and MBA (1975) from McGill University.
