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Welcome to the Accel Letter - a monthly newsletter brought to you by the Waterloo Accelerator Centre and Accelerator Program, providing you with the latest buzz, news and success stories from our start-up community.
The Accelerator Centre, located within Waterloo's David Johnston Research and Technology Park, is a world-renowned, award-winning facility dedicated to developing and commercializing technology start-ups. Visit us on the web at www.acceleratorcentre.com. Stay in touch with us and follow the paths of some of the most innovative companies in the world.
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Feature Story
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The Waterloo Accelerator Centre Joins Canadian Digital Media Network to Contribute to Digital Media Innovation.
In February, the Canadian Digital Media Network (CDMN) announced that the Accelerator Centre is now one of five new "nodes" added to their coast-to-coast network of innovation centres in Canada.
As a member of CDMN, the Waterloo Accelerator Centre and its Client companies gain immediate access to members-only online collaboration of commercialization resources in order to leverage proven regional programming and best practices of network members, as well as contribute resources to the network to be shared with the network's 21 other members. The Accelerator Centre and its Clients will also benefit from significant international market exposure through association with the CDMN.
"The CDMN was initiated in 2009 and has since grown to become a national ecosystem that nurtures and grows Canadian digital media companies," said Kevin Tuer, CDMN Managing Director. "We connect like-minded organizations that provide commercialization resources to Canadian information and communications (ICT) and mobile start-ups and to small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across the country. Together, we provide access to the knowledge, connections, services and support that digital media companies need to successfully innovate and to market themselves at home and abroad."
"The Waterloo Accelerator Centre has developed and commercialized the Accelerator Program's proven formula for growing early-stage companies, and we look forward to collaborating with the other CDMN nodes to further support Canada's growing start-up ecosystem," said Tim Ellis, Accelerator Centre CEO.
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Accelerator Buzz
|  Waterloo Accelerator Program Inc. Partners with Innovate Niagara to Bring Award-Winning Accelerator Program to Start-ups in Niagara Region Start-ups and entrepreneurs in Niagara working within the bio-manufacturing and digital media sectors can now access enhanced commercialization services thanks to an innovative new partnership between Waterloo Accelerator Program Inc. (AP) and Innovate Niagara, a one-stop shop for leaders of developing businesses in innovative clusters, providing critical services to entrepreneurs within the Niagara Region. Innovate Niagara will implement the Accelerator Program's proven framework for start-up success and deliver the program through two locations: the Generator at one Digital Media Facility, and the Brock BioLinc business incubator, a facility focused on bio-manufacturing, with the goal of helping start-ups in Niagara Region move to market faster, create jobs and stimulate economic activity. "The Accelerator Program has successfully changed the landscape for early-stage technology companies, and we are pleased to partner with Innovate Niagara to assist with the growth and development of start-up companies in their region," says Tim Ellis, CEO, Waterloo's Accelerator Centre and Accelerator Program Inc.. "We are very excited at the opportunity to adopt the Accelerator Program's framework. It's a proven process that enables start-ups to succeed," says Jeff Chesebrough, CEO of Innovate Niagara, "The models and processes they use result in measurable success." |
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Client Corner
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Encircle - Reinventing the Home Inventory
Encircle joined the Accelerator Program at the Communitech Hub in August 2012 with three founders, Paul Donald, Ronuk Raval and Christophe Biocca. The company quickly added three more highly talented individuals,Tammy teWinkel, Kym Ho and Chris Mosiadz, to round out the core team. Great team dynamics, lots of hard work, and help from dozens of supporters led to the March 8th launch of Encircle in Canada. A full North America launch is scheduled for April 2013.
More than 95% of consumers do not have an up-to-date inventory and are not prepared to take full advantage of the home contents insurance they are currently paying for if faced with a theft or disaster. Encircle wants to help consumers protect their families, homes and assets by making it easy to create a home inventory.
To make that happen, consumers need to move off away from the static spreadsheet that's filed away for a rainy day and move to Encircle's electronic home inventory system. Encircle then becomes a dynamic support library for every asset inventoried, giving users instant access to digital manuals, setup user guides and videos, troubleshooting, parts and parts ordering, support contacts and more. Users of Encircle are also proactively notified of products in their inventory that are under voluntary or involuntary recall - further protecting family and home. The collective value of Encircle's support library, product recall notifications, automatic product registration with manufacturer and more will make the time and effort invested in creating the inventory well worth it.
Encircle is also proud to have partnered with both the Accelerator Centre and Communitech, who have implemented the solution within their organizations to inventory the contents of their respective facilities.
Encircle is available free until May 5th for Web, iPhone and Android. Please visit www.encircleapp.com for more information and to set up your free Encircle account.
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Alumni News
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More than 800 attendees were on hand to witness the graduation of Sweet Tooth and Cyborg Trading Systems held at the annual Communitech Tech Leadership Conference in Waterloo. The graduation of these two companies brings the total number of Accelerator Program graduates to 28!
Sweet Tooth, founded in 2010 by CEO Jay El-Kaake, is a turn-key points and rewards application for e-commerce stores operating on the Magento platform. As the world's most flexible rewards system, Sweet Tooth offers retailers a completely unique, multi-channel loyalty and rewards experience for customer engagement. More than 3,000 merchants today use Sweet Tooth's application to reward customers who like products on Facebook, refer friends and purchase products. Sweet Tooth's goal is to create loyal customers by creating engaging, personalized experiences in real time. In May 2012, Sweet Tooth closed a $2.25 million financing round with funds coming from OMERS Ventures, MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund, Points International, and other government sources.
Incorporated in 2008 by James McInnes, Peter Metford and Ben Bittrolff Cyborg Trading has experienced rapid growth since entering the Accelerator Program. The team has grown from 10 to 20+ full-time staff in the last 12 months, and the company is experiencing strong organic growth. Cyborg has been awarded the prestigious Microsoft Blue Sky Innovation Excellence Award, the SAP Best Big Data Solution, and the OBAA and London Economic Development Corporation Innovation Award. The company recently closed a $2 million investment round, bringing with it highly accomplished and experienced industry veterans, Philip Deck and Sergei Tchetvertnykh, who will lend their expertise in advisory and board member roles.
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