Dealbook2011Information Technology, Communications & Entertainment
OnMedia, NYC
Table of Contents
About MaRS
Venture Profiles
gShift Labs
InGamer Sports
OpenFile
PostRank
Viafoura
Wave Accounting
Key Contacts
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03
04
05
06
07
08
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It’s my pleasure to introduce our CEO
Showcase presenting companies at
OnMedia NYC 2011.
The six companies in this guide
represent a fraction of the Information
Technology, Communications and
Entertainment (ICE) companies we work with at MaRS.
MaRS is located in Toronto, Canada, one of the world’s
largest ICE clusters with over 11,000 firms, employing over
160,000 professionals.
The MaRS ICE practice currently provides advisory services
to over 300 active clients in Toronto and other Ontario
centres. MaRS has quickly earned the reputation of being
Canada’s leading incubation hub and operates as a major
deal flow engine. We remain focused on developing young
companies and connecting entrepreneurs to the right
international markets and investment capital.
I invite you to speak with our MaRS team at OnMedia NYC
2011 to learn more about our unique approach and to get
to know us online at www.marsdd.com or follow us on
Twitter @marsdd.
Krista Jones
Practice Lead, Information Technology, Communications and Entertainment (ICE) Practice
Building Canada’s Next Generation of Global Technology Companies
MaRS is a large scale innovation centre - located in Toronto
and networked across Ontario - focused on building
Canada’s next generation of technology companies.
Growing to an impressive 1.5 million sq. ft., MaRS is located
in Toronto’s Discovery District, Canada’s largest scientific
research hub, surrounded by a creative urban community
and adjacent to leading financial institutions.
Since its opening in 2005, MaRS has attracted international
attention due to its scale, the quality of its discovery pipeline,
its collaborative model, and its comprehensive offering of
best-in-class services and programs designed to accelerate
the growth of emerging companies.
MaRS works closely with entrepreneurs to grow and scale
their ventures into global market leaders – in life sciences
and healthcare; digital media and information technology,
communications and entertainment; clean technologies,
advanced materials and energy; as well as innovative
social purpose businesses and social enterprises. MaRS
provides business advice and mentorship, market
intelligence, entrepreneurship education, seed capital and
access to critical talent, customer and partner networks.
01
A Model for Market Success
PEOPLE Exceptional Business Services & Market InsightWe provide specialized business advisory services and mentorship, as well as research insight and capital connections that are essential to emerging technology companies.
PROGRAMS Specialized Education & Networking
Our programs provide the business fundamentals of entrepreneurship plus access to specialized educational resources and networking events.
PLACE World Class Research & Collaboration Facilities
We house and incubate top technologists and scientists in an environment optimized for innovation through specialized lab/test facilities and collaborative workspaces.
Information Technology, Communication and Entertainment
Life Sciences and Healthcare
Cleantech
Social Purpose
Materials and Advanced Manufacturing
46%
16%
18%17%
3%
116
324
129 118
19
Active MaRS Clients by Sector
02
Venture Profiles
gShift Labs, Inc.
gShift’s Web Presence Optimization software helps non-technical marketers and agencies get control of their entire online presence so they can rank higher organically in search engines.
Organic search is the #1 lead conversion tactic according to senior-level marketers. However, organic search strategies are difficult to execute, measure and report on. They typically require expensive consultants with the necessary knowledge and expertise. With gShift’s SaaS solution, the SEO process is conducted at a fraction of the cost, by non-experts with daily insights into an organization’s entire web presence. We deliver plain language recommendations that provide the business intelligence to get higher rankings. Plus we deliver more understanding of what actions positively impact rank, traffic and conversions.
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
gShift has developed a unique patent-pending technology that focuses on the content optimization process for the off-site factors of organic search including: press releases, social media and blogs. The company’s management team has a track record of identifying key trends and building software for businesses that optimize marketing processes. For the past twelve years they have worked to provide organic search strategies for their clients.
CURRENT FUNDING
Raised $800,000
SEEKING
$3 million
2 Victoria Street, Unit 2Barrie, ON, M5G X1Xwww.gShiftLabs.com
03
InGamer Sports Inc.
Today there is a major market opportunity to change the way live events are enjoyed by fans in the sports gaming space. The traditional, hardcore sports gaming/fantasy market has plateaued. Why? It has failed to deliver the level of social, real-time engagement that millions of sports fans want. While Fantasy sports games are played by 30 million people in North America, there is the potential to capture a larger share of a 130 million market of avid sports fans. InGamer enables the power of social gaming to create an exciting new way to engage with live events and your friends. Our mobile and online platform is played during live sporting events in real time, on a game-by-game basis. To play, users select any 6 players and receive points based on how those players perform. After each Quarter/Half period, users can change their players, a real time play feature yet to be effectively utilized by other platforms.
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
InGamer Sports is the only platform today that turns the conventional sports gamer from a general manager to an actual head coach which increases the engagement and stickiness of live sports. Users can join anytime, play anywhere and play against anyone while our unique analytics engine provides real-time stats on audience engagement across every touchpoint. This gives broadcasters, brands and sports leagues a more effective way to monetize their audience. Designed by an experienced team of sports and media industry professionals, InGamer has been validated by top-tier clients such as the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) and Rogers Sportsnet. The company has recently partnered with IMG for global distribution.
CURRENT FUNDING
Privately Financed
SEEKING
$2 million
17 McTague St.Guelph, ON, N1H 2A7 www.ingamersports.com
04
OpenFile
OpenFile is a new model to gather, share and report local news. At OpenFile we have inverted the traditional news model asking users — not editors — to drive our editorial content: You suggest the story, we assign the reporter and together, we shape the news.
OpenFile users suggest a story by opening a ‘file’. The OpenFile editor posts that file assigning a professional journalist to cover that story and helping curate the conversation with users. Users can add related links, pictures and video, adding depth to the story and expanding its audience. All of OpenFile’s content is geo-tagged offering advertisers a more targeted audience. Knowing our users interests and locations allows us to deliver advertisers contextual messaging at a hyper-local level - something traditional media is not offering.
OpenFile is operating in seven Canadian cities and is ready to launch around the world. We are partnering with traditional media to give them a deeper reach into communities through the unique OpenFile model, creating new audiences, more interactivity and higher engagement times for newspapers desperate to enhance their digital properties.
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Our bottom-up model produces a constant stream of original and unique content that traditional media tend to miss. OpenFile’s user-suggested stories have higher engagement times and produce more varied content than traditional media, tapping into a whole new market of news at the neighborhood and community level – the stories people are most passionate about. Using its unique ‘turn key’ interface, OpenFile can cover a city or town with one editor and available freelance reporters.
CURRENT FUNDING
Not disclosed
SEEKING
$2.5 million
219 Dufferin St. Suite 211bToronto, ON, M6J 3B4www.openfile.ca
05
Post Rank Inc.
PostRank™ is the Neilson© ratings system of the Internet. We aggregate, archive and analyze content and each engagement event with content happening on the social web (tens of millions of stories and events daily). PostRank™ solutions provide insight into the articles, sites, authors and topics that generate the most social engagement and social influence.
With more than 80% of the content on the web now found in social networks instead of by direct search, and with over 50% of the social engagement with that content happening in the first hour - understanding where and when articles, sites and authors are resonating with the audience is critical. From Ad Networks, to Agencies, to Corporate Enterprise, to News Aggregators, PostRank™ social engagement solutions provide a high precision toolset for extracting business intelligence from the social web driving revenues for our customers.
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
PostRank™ has the most comprehensive database of how and where content is making a social impact with an online audience. We have been aggregating, archiving and analyzing content (and related meta data) on the web for more than 3 years. We collect 5 – 7 million articles per day from the highest quality sources, and track and archive more than 20 million discrete engagement events with those stories daily.
We will also have the world’s largest database of “claimed” or “verified” online authors on the Internet by September 2011. Much like LinkedIn©, we have been successfully incenting authors to verify their sites, social graph profiles and expertise in topic areas resulting in the most accurate influencer identification service that exists.
CURRENT FUNDING
$5 million
SEEKING
$3 million
505-180 King Street SouthWaterloo, ON, N2J 1P8www.postrank.com
06
Viafoura
Viafoura drives continual dialogue among online consumers through a patent pending system that utilizes split screen video debate, text and gaming reward systems. We allow publishers to increase user engagement, time spent, and page views around their content.
As content becomes increasingly specialized, the degree of engagement that consumers have around user generated content is in many cases more powerful than the content produced by the publishers. This creates a massive opportunity to monetize these conversations between content publishers and content consumers.
Improving legacy text-based commenting and forum systems, Viafoura provides a much needed industry standard technology to increase engagement and increase ad revenues.
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Current user engagement solutions that are primarily text-based fail to drive the improved experience now possible with rich media technology. It’s this added value for consumers that also allows us to monetize these conversations for publishers.
Viafoura is the only platform that combines both the commenting section and community section of websites into a seamless user engagement tool. Viafoura at its core is built around obtaining user contributions through 3 different ways: Text, video and split screen video debate.
CURRENT FUNDING
$250,000
SEEKING
$1.25 million
5500 Yonge St. Suite 2411North York, ON, M2N 7L1www.viafoura.com
07
Wave Accounting, Inc.
Though every small business needs to do some form of accounting, two-thirds of them don’t use proper accounting tools due to cost, hassle or confusion. Our approach is to eliminate these three primary friction points while providing a superior accounting program for small businesses. By using a radically different business model and rolling out a free product, we fix the cost, complexity and confusion of accounting.
Wave is a full accounting application (not just invoicing or cash flow). And it is totally free – not just a free trial, not just “freemium.” Wave connects to over 10,000 financial institutions, and imports data directly into the app. This allows the business owner to do away with manual entry and the ever-mounting backlogs of receipts – the most painful part of accounting. Wave then auto categorizes transactions to make things even easier.
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Our new business model, with a $0 price tag, changes everything for small business owners on the fence. Bank data can easily be imported and auto categorized to allow for both personal and business expenses to be logged in a single application. As well, multiple businesses can be accessed through a single account. Wave Accounting also allows for unlimited collaboration with your accountant or business partners. Coming soon, the application will provide mobile features to allow OCR scanning of receipts and the ability to submit receipts via email.
CURRENT FUNDING
$1.5 million
SEEKING
$3 million
276-206 Carlaw AveToronto, ON, M4M 3L1www.waveaccounting.com
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Key Contacts
MaRS CONTACTSKrista Jones ICE Practice [email protected](416) 414.0656
Peter EvansSr. Advisor, ICE [email protected](416) 624.3437
Mark ZimmermanSr. Advisor, ICE [email protected](647) 618.9449
MaRS Discovery District MaRS Centre, South Tower 101 College Street, Suite 100 Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1L7
T 416.673.8416 F 416.673.8181 www.marsdd.com
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COMPANY CONTACTSgShift LabsKrista LariviereCo-founder & [email protected](705) 791.3436
InGamer Sports Inc.Nic Sulsky, Founder and [email protected](416) 834.0413
OpenFileWilf DinnickFounding [email protected](416) 583.2118
Postrank Inc. Carol Leaman, [email protected](519) 514.0064
ViafouraJesse S. MoeninifarFounder & [email protected](416) 564.6228
Wave AccountingKirk SimpsonPresident & [email protected] (416) 662.1162
www.marsdd.comtwitter: @marsdd