Startup District

[panamaniac]

Waterloo startup develops smart technology for EpiPen users
Waterloo Region Record
By Rose Simone

..."It means non-stop vigilance by a lot of people to protect that individual, and that is hard to do on a continuous basis every day," says Alex Leyn, chief executive officer of Aterica, a Waterloo startup that has built a product to support EpiPen users. ...

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/5461...pen-users/

[panamaniac]

MappedIn expects to triple revenues in 2015
Waterloo Region Record

By Terry Pender  

KITCHENER — The fast-growing startup MappedIn has raised $1.51 million in seed funding from a group of Canadian investors as it focuses on scaling up its business.
"We definitely are excited about it," said Hongwei Liu, the Kitchener company's chief executive officer.  "Last year, we largely grew the engineering team. This year we will probably be more about growing the sales and marketing team."

MappedIn now has 21 full-time employees, double the number it had a year ago.  It expects to triple its revenue this year, mainly from existing clients who will use more products from the company, Liu said.

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/5533...s-in-2015/

[panamaniac]

Cloud DX

Kitchener startup aims to turn science fiction into science fact
Waterloo Region Record

By Terry Pender  

KITCHENER — ....

Justin Pedro oversees a small team of developers in the Tannery building in downtown Kitchener who are working on a mobile device that diagnoses many medical conditions. Their company — Cloud DX — is the only Canadian firm in the finals of a $10-million competition to create a device akin to the tricorder seen on "Star Trek."

The Qualcomm Tricorder XPrize is a worldwide contest to spark innovation and integration of diagnostic technologies that will enable people to make their own reliable health diagnoses at home.

Cloud DX has developed a high-tech necklace that collects vital signs and other health data. It sends the information to servers in the cloud where its algorithms parse the data and make a diagnosis.

This integrated system of hardware, software and firmware is called the Vitaliti platform — a combination of mobile sensing and cloud-based diagnostics.
....

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/5552...ence-fact/

[panamaniac]

Interesting 570 news report on a startup, Qidni Labs, involved in renal nano filtration technology.


Kitchener company gets $200k in funding to help build new space technologies
Sydonie Eggett Apr 15, 2015 02:04:42 PM

The federal government has announced funding for a Kitchener company to help build new space technologies for future Canadian space missions.

Qidni Labs received close to $200 thousand dollars through the Canadian Space Agency’s Space Technology Development Program.

The company will be using the money to design, build and test high-performance nano-filters that will be used in the aerospace industry.

[panamaniac]

From today's Record:


Sandbox Accelerator gives startups ability to grow
Waterloo Region Record
By Terry Pender  

KITCHENER — A pair of sprawling industrial buildings on Ardelt Place, which used to be a steel fabrication plant, are now positioned as a new economy accelerator centre that comes with a unique asset — the 80-tonne crane.
It is called the Sandbox Accelerator. It is run by a non-profit corporation formed to market the buildings to hardware startups that need industrial space as well as quiet offices.
Chris Bennett, spokesperson for the Sandbox Accelerator, said entrepreneurs coming out of the University of Waterloo, Conestoga College and elsewhere face special challenges if they have a hardware startup that requires any heavy machinery.
"They still need a flexible commercial space that is efficient and low cost, but it truly needs to be industrial, " Bennett said.
There is enough room to accommodate a startup through early-stage development, prototyping and experimentation, and then commercialization, Bennett said.
"Rather than having to move and re-do a lease every six months or 12 months as they grow and expand, we have such a large facility that we can accommodate that, " Bennett said.
The two buildings at 41 Ardelt Place have 100,000-square-feet of space. The buildings are about 100 metres from the light-rail line. Among the 16 acres of land, three acres are zoned for agricultural use that could be used by startups in biotechnology or genetically-modified crops. There is also a railway spur line running onto the property.
Sandbox Accelerator has loading docks, lab space, offices, an industrial shop floor and places for fabrication. It is modelled after one in California called The Gate, which is in an old Chrysler factory; and another in Eindhoven, Holland, in a former Phillips plant.
"Again, a big industrial space that has gradually been converted into a combination of arts, entertainment, technology and innovation, a makers' space, " Bennett said of former Phillip's plant.
The award-winning, Toronto-based, portrait-photographer Edward Gajdel was hired as the "photolaureate" of the industrial space to produce edgy content for the website - www.sandboxaccelerator.com -that launches Monday. You can see Gajdel's work at www.edwardgajdel.com.
Large, established companies that need space for an innovative team are also a possible market.
"We can provide that type of space where they can go shoulder-to-shoulder with another generation that is moving quickly, " Bennett said. "You can collaborate with others and do things very quickly."
A hardware incubator already exists on Water Street in downtown Kitchener called the Velocity Foundry, part of the University of Waterloo's support program for early-stage startups. And the Accelerator Centre in the David Johnston Research and Technology Park is for both software and hardware startups.
"Our job is not to replicate or duplicate what these organizations are doing, " Bennett said.
The Sandbox would be the first accelerator centre focused on hardware startups.

[panamaniac]

From today's Record:


Dutch startup sets up shop in Waterloo Region
Waterloo Region Record

By Rose Simone

KITCHENER — A Netherlands-based private research institute that specializes in sensors and monitoring solutions for remote locations is setting up its Canadian development and manufacturing centre in Waterloo Region.

John van Pol, co-founder and chief executive officer of Ingu Solutions Inc. , says the company is a startup that spun out of Incas³, a non-profit research institute in the Netherlands that develops sensing and monitoring solutions that work in extreme temperatures or hard-to-reach places.

Ingu is operating out of a rented space in the Communitech Hub in Kitchener but is looking for its own offices as it starts to hire students in engineering-related disciplines out of the University of Waterloo and Conestoga College.

Van Pol says the office will start with five to 10 employees and grow to have about 40 staff. They will make high-tech sensing and monitoring equipment, and design and develop solutions for clients around the world.
..........

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/5598...oo-region/

[rangersfan]

Nice article about high tech start ups in Downtown Kitchener.
http://m.therecord.com/news-story/568711...-kitchener

[Viewfromthe42]

But wait, wasn't Outhit just saying that LRT, and the kind of downtown it fosters, is of no special interest to anyone? This must clearly be poor journalism...

[Spokes]

But wait, wasn't Outhit just saying that LRT, and the kind of downtown it fosters, is of no special interest to anyone? This must clearly be poor journalism...

Goes to show, if you REALLY want to make an argument bad enough, you can find the "evidence" to support it. 

[Elmira Guy]

Yup. Let it never be said that Outhit won't go to any lengths for the sake of his opinion... err... a story. Even lying. Such a twonk!

[Smore]

My favorite is when the record.ca falsely lables his articles as "News" and not "Opinion"

[panamaniac]

Look out, lawyers, here comes Beagle
Waterloo Region Record
By Terry Pender  

KITCHENER — Cian O'Sullivan is a self-taught techie and corporate lawyer with a startup called Beagle that is poised to disrupt a big part of the legal profession — the drafting and reviewing of contracts.
O'Sullivan's team developed software that reviews a proposed contract at the speed of one page per second, and highlights clauses in four critical areas — responsibilities, liabilities, terminations and external references....

Beagle was incorporated about a year ago, and the eight employees are based in offices at the Breithaupt Block in downtown Kitchener. The team returns to Kitchener in August, after closing on sales leads in Seattle. It will go live with its software Nov. 1. ...

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/5715...es-beagle/

[nms]

Look out, lawyers, here comes Beagle
Waterloo Region Record
By Terry Pender  

KITCHENER — Cian O'Sullivan is a self-taught techie and corporate lawyer with a startup called Beagle that is poised to disrupt a big part of the legal profession — the drafting and reviewing of contracts.
O'Sullivan's team developed software that reviews a proposed contract at the speed of one page per second, and highlights clauses in four critical areas — responsibilities, liabilities, terminations and external references....

Beagle was incorporated about a year ago, and the eight employees are based in offices at the Breithaupt Block in downtown Kitchener. The team returns to Kitchener in August, after closing on sales leads in Seattle. It will go live with its software Nov. 1. ...

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/5715...es-beagle/

Neat idea.  They should provide a service that does the same thing for end user license agreements.  Has anybody every made it to the end of a user licence agreement?

[plam]

Look out, lawyers, here comes Beagle
Waterloo Region Record
By Terry Pender  

KITCHENER — Cian O'Sullivan is a self-taught techie and corporate lawyer with a startup called Beagle that is poised to disrupt a big part of the legal profession — the drafting and reviewing of contracts.
O'Sullivan's team developed software that reviews a proposed contract at the speed of one page per second, and highlights clauses in four critical areas — responsibilities, liabilities, terminations and external references....

Beagle was incorporated about a year ago, and the eight employees are based in offices at the Breithaupt Block in downtown Kitchener. The team returns to Kitchener in August, after closing on sales leads in Seattle. It will go live with its software Nov. 1. ...

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/5715...es-beagle/

Neat idea.  They should provide a service that does the same thing for end user license agreements.  Has anybody every made it to the end of a user licence agreement?

Thing is, are you going to negotiate the EULA?

[Viewfromthe42]

Neat idea.  They should provide a service that does the same thing for end user license agreements.  Has anybody every made it to the end of a user licence agreement?

Thing is, are you going to negotiate the EULA?

Negotiate, no, but understand before signing, it could be helpful. I hate to use an episode of South Park as an example, and yet... (Human CentiPad, NSFW)