research and innovation : Innovation + Job News

Earlier this year, we reported that pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline was ramping up its Canadian presence by expanding its Mississauga facility and adding 70 new staff. On Nov. 10, the company announced that its expanded footprint in Canada would also include a significant investment in research, with the launch of its $50-million GSK Health Sciences Canada Innovation Fund.

In the announcement, the company said the investment dollars would spur the industry in Canada, helping to close the "innovation gap."

"We're excited by the prospect of developing even closer ties with leading research organizations across Canada to enhance opportunities for innovation and create new high-value jobs," said GSK president and CEO Paul Lucas. 

According to the company, the fund will provide direct investment to academic and research organizations involved in "early-stage research" in the health sciences sector, particularly academic and health institutions, translational research centres and start-up companies.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Anna Robinson, for GlaxoSmithKline

Toronto startup InferSystems earlier this month announced the launch of its proprietary advertising bidding software. Just one day after that release, the company, founded in 2009, was named to the Canadian Innovation Exchange's list of the 20 most innovative tech companies in Canada.

InferSystems' proprietary technology, the Infer RTB Optimizer, aims to change the world of "real-time bidding" (RTB). Enabling media buying/selling platforms to build accurate data models from Internet response data, the prediction engine allows marketers to get better value for their online advertising money. Ben Mair, president and CEO of InferSystems, says the software will dramatically improve the return on investment for advertisers through a form of arbitrage. They system using a form of "machine learning" to continuously improve performance.

The Canadian Innovation Exchange's annual Top-20 list highlights companies selected from hundreds of applicants. The 20 winners will present at the annual CIX conference to be held at the MaRS Discovery District in December. CIX co-chair Chris Arsenault said in announcing the winners that the list represents the "leaders of tomorrow."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Sources: Lynn Walks, InferSystems; Jackie Peterson for CIX

Toronto's Segasist Technologies, whose founder, Dr. Hamid Tizhoosh, told Yonge Street in September that he expected US Food and Drug Administration approval for his oncology diagnostic product this fall, recently received that approval.

"For a small company such as ours, this is amazing," Tizhoosh says. "FDA approval doesn't mean you've made it as a company. You still have to take the product to market. But getting approval is one of the key challenges of the medical devices market."

Tizhoosh says he's now in discussion with his investors to prepare to launch a technology he believes could "revolutionize" the oncology industry by providing easier, more reliable contours of tumours, a process that now takes an extraordinary amount of time for oncologists. "I am extremely happy, extremely proud, but we still have hard work ahead of us."

Tizhoosh says he expects to hire three or four new staff by January to help the company's growth, bringing his staff to 11 or 12 people.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Dr. Hamid Tizhoosh, CEO, Segasist

At the 2011 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards last week, Toronto entrepreneur Razor Suleman was recognized in the business-to-business category for his company Achievers.

Founded originally in 2002 as I Love Rewards, Achievers offers client companies employee recognition software that allows peers and supervisors to give each other rewards for excellence in the workplace. The software employs social media-style tools to allow employees a platform to work together achieve organizational goals, and offers real world rewards for excellence.

"There is a significant demand for results-driven recognition solutions that offer more than that of traditional service awards," says Sarah-Beth Anders of Achievers. "The same stagnant rewards programs have existed since the 1940s, but Achievers is revolutionizing the industry with results-driven recognition tied with meaningful rewards."

Over the past year, the company has seen explosive growth, expanding from its Liberty Village offices to open a US location in San Francisco after raising $24.5 million in capital, according to Anders. The company also has an office in Boston. Across the three location, Achievers now employs 160 staff—double the number they did last year at this time. "We hope to double our number [again] within the next year," Anders says.

"The awards our company is recognized with—including Razor Suleman’s recent win as E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year in the B2B category—builds our brand and authenticates our success," Anders says in an email. "Receiving public acknowledgement helps to make our business reign top of mind among customers and prospects, and leads us that much closer to achieving our mission to change the way the world works." 

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Sarah-Beth Anders, Achievers

For property owners, a key selling point of energy efficiency improvements has long been that more than just saving the environment, they'll also save money.

Now, an innovative new insurance policy offered by Jones Brown—developed with the Toronto Atmospheric Fund (TAF)—insures against the possibility that retrofits to building do not deliver on expected savings, allowing building owners to be confident they will be able to pay off financing secured to complete the renovations.

The Toronto Atmospheric Fund has long been a pioneer in self-financing energy retrofits, and saw a need for what they're calling the Energy Savings Warranty. Fund VP Tim Stoate says his experience has taught him that there are "lots of barriers" to going ahead with energy efficiency projects for building owners. Programs that take the financial risk away from building owners help fuel the process, allowing a win-win-win situation.

"There's no cost for the capital improvements [since they pay for themselves through energy savings], there's free cash flow from the savings over and above the cost, and there's no risk to the lender [such as a bank] because the savings are insured." says Stoate. All of that is in addition to the environmental benefit of lower carbon emissions in buildings. 

Stoate says this new policy is targeted at smaller owners of large buildings. Large institutions such as hospitals and universities already have access to similar policies because their credit is assumed to be rock solid. But condo boards, malls and owners of buildings such as Harbourfront Centre can now enjoy the same advantage—lowering their energy cost and actually earning a profit without putting up capital in advance.

In making the announcement, Jen Aitchison of Jones Brown estimated that the market for such a product extended to "tens of thousands" of building owners across the country. She said that building owners would not be the only ones whose fears are eased by the insurance, as it could provide banks and other lenders the confidence needed to finance large-scale building sustainability improvements.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Tim Stoate, VP Impact Investing, Toronto Atmospheric Fund

Toronto's Chango, a media company dedicated to "search retargetting"—serving display ads to customers based on their recent search activity after they have left Google, Bing and Yahoo—has been growing quickly. This year they were named to the Deloitte Fast 50 "companies to watch" list of Canada's fastest growing technology startups.

The pace of growth is likely to accelerate soon, as the federal government agency FedDev Ontario recently announced an investment in the company of $978,333 to support research into real-time bidding software and finance growth. Chango says the investment will lead to 37 new hires at its Toronto offices.

"The funding will be used to accelerate our growth plans into the fast-growing search retargetting space," CEO Chris Sukornyk said in the announcement. "We appreciate the support from FedDev Ontario to retain technology start-ups in Canada."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Chris Sukornyk, CEO, Chango; Gary Toft, Ministry of Economic Development

Yonge Street has reported on the explosive growth of technology company ViXS twice in the past year, and the good news has continued flowing for the company. Just last week, ViXS was named one of the top tech companies in Canada and its CEO, Sally Daubs, was named a top female entrepreneur by the prestigious Deloitte Fast 50.

Last month, the provincial government announced an investment that will help ViXS develop a new energy-efficient media processor to power multimedia devices including set-top boxes, TVs and digital recorders. The devices will help stream content to mobile tablets and smart phones.

The investment will help ViXS create 107 new jobs in Toronto. "We're positioning ViXS as an ahead-of-the-curve leader in digital media delivery," Daubs said in the announcement. "Through this investment, we can increase our world-class employee base, expand our global presence and support the GTA's ever-growing ICT cluster development."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Andrew Block, Office of the Minister of Economic Development and Innovation

When Global financial fund administration company Apex Fund Services announced the opening of its Toronto office just over a year ago, managing director Peter Hughes declared he saw "significant potential for growth" in the Canadian market.

Just last week, Glen Murray, Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, announced that as part of the government's efforts to "secure our position as a global financial services hub," the province would invest in the company, helping finance an expansion of its Toronto operations. The expansion, which will lead to 50 new hires in the Apex Yorkville office, will see new or expanded risk reporting and administration services offered by the company to Canadian clients.

Hughes said in the release that Apex was helping to "put Canada firmly on the map as one of the world's fastest growing financial centres."

Canadian managing director Alex Chapman said that Toronto appears ripe for growth, one year after he and his company located here. "As a global company, Apex sees Canada to be a key location for the expansion of its personalized services for fund managers—domestically and internationally."

Parent company Apex Bermuda has 23 offices around the globe administering funds and asset classes over $16-billion.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Sources: Andrew Block, office of the Minister of Economic Development and Trade; Alex Chapman, Managing Director, Canada, Apex Fund Services

Innovative Vaughan-based health and fitness company Newtopia will get an injection of almost $250,000 in capital to launch its service more broadly across the continent, thanks to the federal government's Economic Development agency, it was announced last week.

The company's approach is to use what founder Jeffrey Ruby calls an innovative "breakthrough in personal genetic testing" to come up with a personalized health and fitness coaching program for clients. Newtopia's services are delivered to clients live online through portals on the web and through mobile devices. Clients also get access online to real-time video chats with their coaches. The service was launched commercially in January of this year after two years of beta testing. Ruby says the company has seen between 20 and 30 per cent client growth each month. As for results, Ruby claims 80 per cent of clients report acheiving their weight loss or health goals and maintaining that success for six months. The service launched commercially in the United States in September.

Ruby says that since January, the company has grown from 18 to 25 staff—including both full-time employees and consultants. He anticipates adding an additional 10 to 15 new coaches to the team over the next year. The injection of funding from the government will help finance broader market deployment of the product—and not strictly because of the money itself. "It's a real credibility marker," Ruby says, "that the government of Canada is behind this approach."

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Jeffrey Ruby, Founder, Newtopia

HRCarbon, a Toronto-based consulting and education firm specializing in carbon management, will soon be partnering with Ontario colleges to help companies in Canada and around the world lower their carbon footprint and, as founder Jay Parmar says, better engage in "climate risk management."

Under a program announced this month, the company will partner with Durham College to develop software to help companies assess and manage their transportation-related carbon emissions. And in a separate partnership that is awaiting announcement by a government agency, according to Parmar, HRCarbon will help develop a course to see 180 students—drawn from existing professionals such as accountants and lawyers— obtain certification as Greenhouse Gas Inventory Quantifiers, in project management and in LEED certification. Parmar points out that HRCarbon is currently the only firm in the world offering education that leads to CSA certification for Greenhouse Gas Inventory Quantification.

Founded four years ago, HRCarbon discovered that in its early consulting meetings, up to 80 per cent of time was being taken up simply explaining the concept of climate change risk management. So they established educational courses on the subject targeted at corporate clients. Since then, the company has established offices in the US and UK and offered its services around the world.

Parmar says the future is bright for the industry. "Every job out there is going to have sustainability embedded in it. And companies will need professionals who understand the risk metrics associated with it." Just as accountants have always helped companies manage their financial risks, he says, they will need to track, measure and manage the risks associated with their carbon footprints. That will become increasingly important as more countries introduce carbon taxes.

Parmar says the company expects to do some hiring over the next year, but cannot say exactly how many new staff will be added. However, he points to still another growth area. "We've partnered up with the CSA and Cushman Wakefield to develop green business standards through a registered Carbon Neutral Program," he says. That program will be launched in July.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Jay Parmar, founder, HRCarbon

Whether it's fights over bike lanes, road tolls, transit plans or the so-called "war on the car," the topic of transportation is never far from the forefront of Toronto's civic debate. Understandably so, considering that Toronto suffers the longest commute times in North America.

"Whether it's business leaders or poverty activists, commuters or seniors, everyone in the GTA wants better transportation options," stated Julia Deans, CEO of the non-profit agency CivicAction, in a recent release. "It's time we find a way to agree on how we can all help to make this desire a reality."

CivicAction has partnered with the University of Toronto's Cities Centre, the Canadian Urban Transit Association and the Pembina Institute to organize a two-day symposium on transportation entitled Toronto Talks Mobility. The event will gather some of the most accomplished experts on transit from the GTA and around the world with visiting mayors to discuss our transportation options.

Speakers include Mayor Naheed Nenshi of Calgary, transit expert Bob Stanley and George Hazel, author of the book Making Cities Work. Also on the bill are local planning experts Ken Greenberg and Paul Bedford, as well as transit experts from Calgary and Vancouver.

The event takes place Wed., Nov. 9 at Toronto City Hall and Thu, Nov. 10 at Artscape Wychwood Barns. Registration is open to the public through event pages here.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Rebecca Geller, CivicAction

When Artez Interactive launched its service helping charities with online fundraising 12 years ago, the business was new and the concept untried. 

"When we started we never would have imagined how big it would become," says CEO and chairman James Appleyard. "Our first year, a charity we were working with raised $50,000 online and they were delighted. This year we've raised $100 million online for charities around the world."

The Toronto for-profit company has built an empire innovating for nonprofit clients, and now has offices in in the US, the UK, Australia and around the world. Recently it continued its tradition of pioneering when it was the first company to launch a fundraising application on Facebook's new Open Graph platform.  Open Graph allows third-party websites to publish user activity to Facebook, increasing the ways sites connect to Facebook.

Appleyard says that when the company helped define the concept of online fundraising at its launch, back in 2004, it developed a software product that could be customized and used by all charities. It has been refining and building on that same product as the online world has grown and evolved. "We invented the electronic tax receipt," he says, "and now those are used everywhere in the world. We invented the personal fundraising page, the first framework for fundraising on the iPhone and Android phones and now we're first to the table with Facebook Open Graph." Appleyard says the immediate future for the industry involves continuing to make fundraising easy across the "multi-channel online world... so that if you're a supporter, you can fundraise equally well using whatever tool you're using."

He says the constant innovation has led to constant growth for the company—at 50 staff, Appleyard says it's fair to say they've doubled the number of employees in the past three years. Artez has 10 open positions now, and expects to add another 20 new employees over the next 12 months.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: James Appleyard, CEO & chairman, Artez Interactive

PowerStream, an electricity distribution utility jointly owned by the cities of Markham, Barrie and Vaughan, has become the first company in the 905 and the first electricity company in Ontario to have two different buildings certified LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold.

In announcing the new green credential at the company's south operations centre in Markham, president and CEO Brian Betz said the recognition was a tribute the company's commitment to "innovation and forward thinking."

The facility is home to more than 150 staff, about a third of the company's workforce. Among the sustainability innovations that earned the facility recognition were 16.5 kilowatts of solar energy generation capacity, along with a host of conservation features including a white roof to keep the building cool, drought-resistant landscaping to lower water usage, and heating and air-conditioning systems the company says are "free of harmful gases."

Markham mayor Frank Scarpitti, chair of PowerStream's board, says that the efforts put into the building show the company's dedication to innovative social and environmental consciousness. "This building's achievement of LEED Gold certification is consistent with PowerStream's corporate vision," he said in a statement, "committed to the environment and sustainable growth."

PowerStream's head office in Vaughan was certified LEED Gold three years ago.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Eric Fagen, PowerStream Inc.

Toronto mobile application developer MobileFringe, a player in the business-to-business retail market for three years, has entered the consumer app market with its location-based discount program, Push a Deal.

Company co-founder and CEO Steve Sorge says the application offers discounts to people at businesses near their current location, and is more accessible to small retailers and food service companies than popular group-buying platforms.

"The feedback we were getting was that the group-buying model only worked for certain kinds of businesses, and for many retailers, the deep discounts and fees were unsustainable," says Sorge.

His software, he says, allows companies to offer smaller discounts of 10 to 15 per cent. MobileFringe will take a 25 per cent commission on the discount. Companies pay fees soley based on redemptions--sales made. That fact, plus the location-based nature of how it "pushes" alerts to customers' phones, make it very attractive for smaller businesses. "It's set up to be a long-term strategic tool in the mobile space for a lot of these companies that do not have the budget to create their own apps."

MobileFringe was founded in November 2008 and has established itself as a developer-for-hire in the retail industry, especially serving shopping centres. In the lead up to launching their first consumer application this year, they've hired four new employees, bringing their staff to 10, and moved from their "typical early-stage office" of 800-square-feet into a new 2,400-square-foot office. 

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Steve Sorge, CEO, MobileFringe

Toronto-based software company Wave Accounting, which sets out to offer completely free software to small business owners, recently received an investment of just over $755,000 from the federal government's economic development agency, FedDev Ontario. "Anybody in a startup is going to sometimes have to focus on keeping the wolves at bay," says company spokesperson Rob Maurin. "This investment allows us to play in a more strategic way, developing the business with an eye to long-term growth and profitability instead of trying to monetize as quickly as possible."

Launched just over a year ago, in November 2010, the company offers full-service accounting software to small business owners and freelancers. The software produces business intelligence and reports suitable for filing tax returns and managing a business. Maurin says, "It's 100 per cent free, there's no premium features, no limit on transactions, no cap on the size of business." Maurin says founders Kirk Simpson and James Lochrie noticed that almost two-thirds of small business owners--those with fewer than 10 employees--use any kind of accounting software at all, and saw a huge potential market of 29 million such businesses across North America.

Wave makes its money by using aggregated business information from clients--while, stresses Maurin, vigilantly protecting their privacy and information--to offer them targeted deals from other companies. "Let's say we saw that 10,000 small business owners in Canada were each spending $120 a month with cell phone carrier A," he says. "We might go to cell phone carrier B and say, 'Can we facilitate an introduction, if you're able to offer these business owners a savings?'"

Wave is also developing other business software on a for-pay model--Maurin says they are launching payroll management software this month--that clients might fight useful to complement their accounting package.

In one year, the staff has gone from 7 to 21. Maurin says they are still hiring now. "I wouldn't be surprised if next year at this time our staff has doubled again," he says.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Rob Maurin, Director of Community and Marketing, Wave Accounting