While the once frequently prophesied dream of the paperless office still isn’t a complete reality, the majority of new business information exists in the digital realm. While digital documents can be infinitely copied, the lifespan of digital storage media is often shorter than that of analog media. Despite technological advances, the need for proper archiving remains, and is often required by law.

Datawitness, a fourth round finalist in 2004 based out of Richmond, provides a robust data retention solution for small to large business, education, and governments. In addition to archiving documents in their secure data center, Datawitness also transfers those documents to microfilm, creating an analog copy suitable for long-term storage. Documents are digitally fingerprinted to guard against tampering. On top of this platform, they provide a “Mailwitness” service that tracks delivery and receipt of sensitive email, along with archiving.

The service has been approved for use by the governments of British Columbia and Ontario. In 2006, they won an “Investor’s Choice” award at the 20th Angel Forum in Vancouver. In 2007, Datawitness received “Eligible Business Corporation” status, allowing investors to receive a tax credit under the New Media Venture Capital program. Also in 2007, Datawitness launched an API, allowing third party developers to plug in to their service.

Datawitness’ innovative technology, competitive pricing, and attention to legal requirements has rewarded them with pleased customers and stable growth. As more of the world’s data is converted to digital form, and data retention standards become more strict, demand for Datawitness’ services will increase into the foreseeable future.

While filming elevator pitches at one of the seminars this year, the fine folks of Fundfindr shot some additional interviews and put together a five minute “webisode” video that gives a nice overview of the competition, its history, and its mandate. The video features Angie Schick, NVBC Program Manager, Dave Thomas of Rocketbuilders, competitor Boyd Cohen of 3rd Whale, and Ross Waddell of the BC Innovation Council.

Visit fundfindr.tv for more video on entrepreneurship topics. If you’re interested in professional video production for your event, demo, pitch, product or service contact shannon@fundfindr.tv.

After some quiet months, Basil Peters (presenter at Seminar #7) has posted new content to AngelBlog, his resource on “Best Practices for Angel Investors and Entreprenuers”. The new posts cover raising funding from friends and family, and why early exits are a good thing. Based on Basil’s 10+ years of experience as a fund manager, AngelBlog contains a wealth of information for entreprenuers, all relevant to doing business in British Columbia and Canada. A must read for NVBC entrepruenuers.

The seminar series might be over, but you’re still welcome to come out for the “Meet Your Mentor” networking event. It takes place this Wednesday, June 18, 5:30pm, at SFU Harbour Centre, 515 W. Hastings St, Room 1400. The Round 3 finalists will get a chance to meet their mentor match-ups, and everyone from the NVBC community is welcome to attend, chill, nibble, and network.

The event is free, but please register online.

Concurrent to the New Ventures BC Competition, Fundfindr (also a NVBC competitor), ran a competition of their own, called the Pitchies Warmup, exclusively for NVBC competitors. Entrants were challenged to submit an elevator pitch video to the Fundfindr site. Today, the winners of that were announced, with the grand prize of a weekend in Whistler being awarded to Nikki Layton of Volo Innovations. Unfortunately, Nikki didn’t make it through to round 3 of the NVBC competition, but with her pitching skills, should have no problem wooing investors. Runners up include Pneuvation, Cellmaps, and Adhack. You can watch the winning video here:

There’s still opportunity to enter into the Pitchies main event, already going on.

Watch your inbox for the second New Ventures BC Seminar Series Survey. Anyone on the New Ventures mailing list should receive it. Its quick, and your feedback helps improve the competition. Thanks in advance for your responses.