Research and Innovation : Innovation + Job News

Dr. Marvin Schwartz is a maxillofacial surgeon who has seen his share of arthritic joint problems.

"You could say this is many years in the making," he says of his company, 4iBIO, which is conducting clinical trials now on an artificial joint implant it hopes to make available for animal use this year.

"Helping humans is down the road," he says, noting that regulatory approvals are much more difficult for the human medical market than for the veterinary one. "The process is set. I have an American patent and other patents to follow. We've finished clinical trials on sheep hips, we're just finishing a clinical trial on dogs, and we have the intention of going to the veterinary market in about six months," he says.

The current dog trials are being conducted at the University of Guelph, with 50 per cent of the funding coming from the federal government (and the other half coming from 4iBIO). Schwartz says that he is seeking about $1.5 million now to set up a manufacturing facility in the GTA that will receive imaging data—such as CT scans—from doctors anywhere in the world and create a custom-made prosthesis for the patient using 3D modelling. For the trials, the company's three principals have been contracting out the manufacturing work, but expect to hire about three staff for the new plant when it opens.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Dr. Marvin Schwartz, CEO, 4iBIO 

Craig Follett, founder of the Toronto startup uniiverse, which launched publicly last week, describes his company as catering to the "sharing economy."

"It's a person-to-person marketplace for services and activities," he says. "It allows anyone to monetize their time, resources, skills or their possessions." He says, for example, that people can offering cooking classes, rent out their power tools or organize car sharing. "One cool thing we have in Toronto is lunch sharing. If you get, say, five people who all work at BCE Place who are sick of food courts, they can join together and everyone in the group takes turns bringing in lunch for all five people." That's just one example, he says, of how the site encourages in-person interaction as much as commerce.

Though it launched globally, the platform sorts users by location, offering hyper-local functionality. "For instance, it will take your location as The Junction, and show you first offers based closest to The Junction."

The idea for the company occurred to Follett and his co-founder Ben Raffi about a year ago while he was working for a management consulting firm in Toronto. They found a CTO, and began working on it full-time in June, 2011, with the founders putting up their own savings as seed money. They attracted $750,000 in angel investment, and have now grown their team to nine staff working out of a Jarvis Street office in the St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood.

Follett says that in the first 24 hours after the site launched on Feb. 7, the number of listings grew by 200 per cent. "In the wake of the economic crisis, and a number of economic, social and cultural trends," he says, including decreased attachment to ownership and an increase in freelance work, "this allows people to be a bit more resourceful."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Craig Follett, Founder, uniiverse

One year ago, says founder Chris Ye, Uken Games had five staff, and it has grown since then to employ 27 people in its Toronto office. And they're still hiring.

"We are expecting to be 40 people by the end of this quarter," he says. "We think that 2012 will be the year mobile gaming really blows up, and we think over the next two to five years, a few really large companies will emerge to dominate the field. We aim to be one of them."

The company was launched three years ago when Ye and co-founder Mark Lampert met at a Facebook app development camp. "We had some success with some gifting apps," he says, noting that a trick-or-treating application they developed for the social network drew sponsorship from Nestle. "We had a million monthly active users, we made money, and that got us excited."

The duo began making games, and eventually started selling those games across multiple platforms so they were not just playable on Facebook, but through iPhone, Android and Blackberry mobile devices. They now have eight titles, and a game engine that allows them to develop more new games quickly. "We've got 25 million installs now, and we've got large-scale distribution. So we're focused on launching new titles."

Ye says that the company has been profitable for two years now, and has been able to finance its growth through revenue without taking on outside investment. And that has meant, too, that they haven't had to consider moving.

"You can do it without going to Silicon Valley," he says. "There's great talent here in Toronto, which was the driver for us in choosing to stay here. But we also like being at home."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Chris Ye, Founder and CEO, Uken Games

The Ryerson University DMZ—short for Digital Media Zone—launched in the spring of 2010 to incubate new, innovative businesses from Ryerson students and alumni. Less than two years and 39 startups later, the incubator is growing.

This spring, it will open a new 5,400 square-foot space in the basement of the building it occupies at 10 Dundas Street East, bringing its total space to about 15,800 square feet.

"With the addition of the new space, the Zone will be able to accommodate about 50 new innovators," says DMZ media representative Lauren Schneider.

Schneider says that the Zone's successes so far—including noteworthy startups 500px, Shape Collage and Teamsave—have seen seven companies "graduate" to their own office spaces and have created 357 new jobs, plus 48 direct jobs supporting the Zone at Ryerson.

The growth, Schneider says, builds on the DMZ's mandate. "The Digital Media Zone will continue to play a key role in Toronto’s new digital economy by fostering young innovators... to help keep the world’s best talent here and contributing to our economy."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Lauren Schneider, Media Relations, Ryerson DMZ

Mississauga's Seawell Networks recently announced the closing of a $5-million Series B funding round, which Seawell VP Andy Beach says will finance the video software company's rapid growth.

"We're at a stage where we're expanding the company to get into the market in a larger way," Beach says. "This funding will allow us to do that."

Seawell was founded in late 2008 to help solve some problems for network operators with delivering video to various devices. Seawell's technology allows operators a system to provide video with a better user experience, and gives them more control over various elements of the streaming process, including the display of ads.

The company has grown, Beach says, from about 20 staff to 28 in the past 12 months, and expects to hire another 10 to 12 in the coming year, including sales and marketing staff and developers.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Andy Beach, VP Marketing and Product, Seawell Networks

About 18 months ago, SurfEasy founder and CEO Chris Houston was looking for a product that would help him maintain privacy as he conducted business online from various different computers. "I found some things that you could hack together if you followed all 38 of the instructions," he says, "and I found some enterprise-level solutions for large businesses." What he didn't find was a simple plug-and-play way for regular people to protect their information. In an age where more and more business is conducted in the cloud or otherwise online. This struck him as an opportunity.

His attempt to fill that gap in the market launched at the high-profile CES show in Las Vegas last month. "It was fantastic," Houston says. "We got a great reception from potential distributors and potential partners." The product is a USB key that contains its own browser. Plug it into any computer and you can access your own customized browser with your own passwords, cookies and bookmarks stored on it. Unplug the key, and all the information travels with you.

The concept has very quickly attracted financing, first from two private venture capitalists, and then from the MaRS-affiliated provincial government Innovation Accelerator Fund. "We're pretty well funded now, and we're ready to take this thing out to market," Houston says.

The company, only officially incorporated a year ago, has already grown to 10 staff, "most of them development focused." Houston says that over the next six to 12 months, he expects a "big growth spurt." New staff are starting this month, more new positions are being advertised now, "and we've got more new positions coming."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Chris Houston, Founder and CEO, SurfEasy

In 2010, we reported that University of Toronto spinoff company Xagenic had secured just over a million dollars in funding to move forward with commercializing its nanotechnology-based diagnostic test. It was about half of the funding the company attracted that year.

Last week, the company got another big boost towards bringing its test—which could help screen for cancer and other diseases—to market, as it closed a $10-million funding round led by Montreal's CTI Life Sciences Fund. The arrangement will see two CTI partners join Xagenic's board.

Dr. Shana Kelley, the founder and CTO of Xagenic, founded the company based on her research at the University of Toronto. In a statement, she said the investment would help "establish Xagenic as a world leader offering rapid, on-demand diagnostic tests." She says these tests should both lower costs and improve care.

Kelley, responding to question by email, said that the funding will allow Xagenic to add some members to its team of 10 over the next year, and will also finance clinical trials.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Shana Kelley, CTO, Xagenic

When Upverter officially launched its web-sharing software for hardware design at the prestigious Demo conference in fall 2011, the company went from 500 Beta users to 1,500 users in a single day. Now they're up to 3,500 "early adopter" users, says company co-founder and CEO Zak Homuth, as they plan to launch a second version of the software this spring.

In a nutshell, the product can be described as "Google Docs for hardware," allowing designers and engineers to collaborate on the web while designing machines and other real-world objects. "Building real things is really hard and it costs a lot," Homuth says. "We're trying to make that easier."

Homuth and his two co-founders were friends and roommates as engineering students at the University of Waterloo, when they decided to try to solve some of the field's problems by introducing the kind of team-sharing software that had already been introduced to office functions and software design. Homuth says the field of industrial design software was well-established and can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and perhaps because of its maturity as a software sector, it has been slower to see innovation.

The company got an early boost through a Silicon Valley residency at the Y Combinator incubator, but came home to Toronto to establish itself. "We came back for the talent," Homuth says. "The money goes three times as far, and we're hiring the same guys as the companies in the Valley hire, from the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto, but we're offering them the city environment that they want, that feels like home."  The company has raised three rounds of funding so far, and expects to raise more revenue for a broader marketing push after the new version is launched this spring, likely in April.

Homuth says his team has grown from the three original founder to seven staff now, and expects that after the spring launch, the team will double in size.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Zak Homuth, Founder and CEO, Upverter

Cisco is out recruiting 100 graduate-level engineering staff right now as part of a five-year expansion of R&D at its two Toronto locations and its location in Ottawa.

"We'd like to bring in as many people as quickly as we can," says Paul Howarth, the company's director of strategic initiatives. "We're out on campus now, hiring up to 100 people for this year."

In a recent announcement, the provincial government heralded its investment of $25 million in Cisco under a memorandum of understanding signed last year. The agreement will see 300 new jobs created in Ontario—a doubling of Cisco's R&D staff—with roughly half of those new hires working in the company's Scarborough and Liberty Village offices, according to Howarth. The move is a bounce back for Cisco, which had trimmed its Canadian workforce by five per cent last year as it focussed on its core activities in response to the global economic downturn.

Howarth says that the investment from the province is a key factor in the multinational company's decision to expand here. The favourable corporate tax regime alongside Ontario's stable economy are also factors.

"Aside from that, the key thing is access to talent. Toronto is a hotbed for software development. It may not be well known as such, but it is," he says, citing the concentration of top-tier universities in the area.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Paul Howarth, Director of Strategic Initiatives, Cisco

Richmond Hill's iSign has been offering its patented software to retailers since before 2008—and the company went public in 2009. But it had a coming out of sorts in its GTA hometown late last month. "We've demonstrated this product at shows all across North America," says founder and CEO Alex Romanov. "We must do 10 shows a year, but I think the DX3 show last week was the first time we've ever really done a show in Toronto."

Romanov said the product was well received at DX3, Canad's premier trade show dedicated to digital marketing, advertising and retailing. iSign's product allows retailers to use Bluetooth and wifi to send advertisements and offers to shoppers who are in close proximity to their store. Romanov says that the units contact phones within a 300-foot radius, ensuring that discounts are being offered to people in a position to make an impulse buy.

Originally founded in 2006 in Vancouver, the company moved to Richmond Hill after becoming a partner with IBM's POS kiosk division. In 2007, iSign rolled out in 620 store locations in Singapore, and has since been expanding steadily in North America. Romanov says the company's biggest Canadian customer used to be Pinpoint Media, which operated displays in 5,600 Mac's Milk locations—until iSign purchased Pinpoint.

Romanov says the company has grown in the past 12 months to 16 employees from six. While he anticipates possible hiring in the near future, he says the company is more likely to expand through contracting. A pending three-year agreement with convenience and grocery-store display giant SelectCore will soon see iSign's technology in 7,000 locations across the US and Canada.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Alex Romanov, Founder and CEO, iSign Media

Less than one year after spinning off from the University of Waterloo and setting up office at the MaRS incubator's downtown Toronto office, Smarter Alloys has signed a development agreement that could change the shape of the orthodontics industry. The technology developed by Smarter Alloys founder, Dr. Ibraheem Khan, allows special alloys to remember multiple "shape memories." The process means such materials may be programmed to perform multiple functions.

The implications of Smarter Alloys technology extend to multiple industries, including printers and hard drives, automobile components and energy conservation. Last November, the company won the CleanTech North Innovator of the Year Award for its technology's potential to harvest wasted heat and reduce fossil fuel consumption.

The deal announced this month, according to a statement by Khan, "is poised to greatly improve the functionality of smart materials used in orthodontic applications.... We’re especially pleased with this agreement because our partner has a proven track record of taking innovation and converting it into improved dental care."

The announcement is the first of four to six development agreements that Smarter Alloys expects to announce this year, to accompany further growth. They recently hired a business development manager with the help of a $50,000 grant from MaRS and expect to double the size of their technical team. They also plan to open a manufacturing facility in 2012.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Sources: Chris Stevenson, Director of Communications, MaRS; Ibraheem Khan, Smarter Alloys

The Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation announced last week that it would help Scarborough innovators Pond Biofuels hire 10 new staff to demonstrate their technology. Pond takes industrial smokestack emissions and converts them into algae that can then be converted into diesel fuel. According to Pond, one tonne of algae can produce 100 litres of diesel, while the residual matter can be used as a coal substitute. The process cuts an industrial plant's carbon emissions while simultaneously producing fuel.

The process, with help from a grant from the provincial government's Innovation Demonstration Fund, is currently being piloted at a test with St. Mary's Cement in Bowmanville to convert smokestack emissions. Pond anticipates rolling out a full-scale plant in about two year.

In a statement, Pond CEO Steven Martin said that the collaboration with St. Mary's Cement and the provincial government would pay dividends that extend to other sectors. "Going forward, Pond's made-in-Ontario technology can be applied to other essential industries, like steel, power generation and resource extraction."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Sources: Andrew Block, Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation; Corporate Affairs, Pond Biofuels 

For 20 years, the non-profit group Evergreen has been working on its mandate to bring nature into cities. Their efforts gained their most visible expression over the past few years at the Brick Works, a reclaimed industrial site in the Don Valley that serves as a natural conservation area and educational centre, as well as home to a farmers' market. The focus has been very local. But lately the organization has been thinking much bigger, looking closely at "larger global sustainability issues related to cities," says Evergreen public relations manager Anthony Westenberg. That includes issues ranging from food supply and water use to building construction and land use.
 
In order to further the climate of green urban innovation—here and around the world—Evergreen opened the Centre for Green Cities last year at the Brick Works, which Westenberg describes as a sort of "MaRS for Sustainability." The centre serves as a place for entrepreneurs and researchers to showcase their work and connect with each other. They aim to study the best urban sustainability practices from around the world and to support and export the best innovations from Canada.
 
In the wake of all this activity, the Centre for Green Cities has just launched a website to share knowledge and information at cgc.evergreen.ca. Staff are beginning to populate the site now (one of the first links posted was to a piece by yours truly). They've also started a series profiling innovative individuals and organizations, starting with electric car company Better Place, which Yonge Street covered last year, and lighting technology company Fifth Light Technology.
 
Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Anthony Westenberg, Public Relations Manager, Evergreen

"We were all talking, and someone brought up a pap test," says Jessica Ching of a conversation in her industrial design class at OCAD. "No really likes going, and it's a problem. This is something that's potentially life-saving, yet people hate it. That's a shame." That observation led Ching and her business partner Evan Moses to found Eve Medical, a Toronto medical device startup that aims to improve health outcomes for women.
 
Since incorporating in 2010, the two-person company has attracted a series of small but significant sources of encouragement and funding, including grants and loans from the provincial Ministry of Innovation, winning the MaRS Up-Start contest and the Martin Walmsley Fellowship for Technical Entrepreneurship.
 
Eve Medical's first product is HerSwab, a device that allows women to collect their own samples to test for vaginal infections such as chlamydia, gonorrhea and, especially, HPV (human papillomavirus). The last is important because the presence of certain strains of HPV can indicate a high-risk of cervical cancer, and diagnosing cases more easily could lead more women into screening for the life-threatening cancer. The device allows women to overcome the significant barrier of needing to visit a clinic for an intimate and sometimes invasive test administered by a doctor.

Ching says she hopes to have the device finalized by next month, after which a launch to market—likely in Europe first, partly because getting regulatory approvals there is easier—will follow.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Jessica Ching, CEO, Eve Medical
 

After launching its microvideo social networking platform in September, Toronto startup Keek got a shot in the arm late last year when it attracted $5.5 million in financing. The concept is simple: it takes the status update stream format of Twitter, but replaces the text-based messages with YouTube-style short videos (up to 36 seconds) that can be posted from Android and iPhone mobile devices or from desktop computers.
 
"The youth of today clearly want to use video for both communication and entertainment," said Keek founder and CEO Isaac Raichyk in launching the product last fall. "We've created a platform that provides users with a fun new way to connect and share their lives."
 
Based at Yonge and Eglinton, the company has grown to about 30 employees since launching in early 2010. With the new capital in hand and a mission to constantly refine and build out its platform, it continues to grow its team. 

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Miranda McCurlie, Manager, Public Relations and Marketing, Keek Inc.