The Vancouver Enterprise Forum has invited the founders of a successful local startup to share their extraordinary growth story on January 25th.

This entertainment company takes having fun very seriously. Their entertainment properties showcase music, song lyrics and games through some of the most popular websites, widgets and mobile applications. Their flagship property, MetroLyrics.com has become the most popular lyrics site worldwide, reaching more than 40 million unique monthly visitors, receiving 100 million monthly page views, and ranking as the 5th largest music web site worldwide.

MetroLeap Media’s Alan Juristovski and Milun Tesovic will share their story from inception to current day with a Q&A session to wrap things up.

This VEF event is on January 25th from 5:30pm to 8:00pm at the Vancity Theatre at 1181 Seymour Street. Register online.

The Daily Planet, a daily science show that delivers a fascinating mix of documentaries and features on the Discovery Channel Canada, is looking for exciting stories from British Columbia. If you are on the brink of an interesting development, new invention or are somebody doing something pretty incredible –  please contact researcher Erica Foley (info below).

In particular, she’s looking for local BC stories regarding new machinery, research breakthroughs or backyard inventors.

Erica Foley
erica.t.foley@gmail.com
250 683 8131

The Daily Planet
http://www.discoverychannel.ca/Showpage.aspx?sid=13287
http://twitter.com/DiscoveryCanada

The Daily Planet has been running for 16 years and its 7pm nightly broadcast attracts about 1 million viewers. It airs in Canada, and is repackaged for international viewers.

2010 has been a year of firsts for the BCIC-New Ventures Competition: celebrating our first decade, awarding three awards to one recipient for the first time in the competition’s history and launching our first Regional competition exclusively for entrepreneurs located outside of the Lower Mainland.

Congratulations again to the winners of the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place BCIC prize packages in our 2010 provincial competition: Hiretheworld.com, Solegear Bioplastics and Quadrogen Power Systems. Quadrogen and Solegear also garnered additional prizes, with Solegear winning an unprecedented three awards.

In addition to the networking and mentorship opportunities offered to entrants in the competition, the education component has always been integral to the success of the program and its applicants.  Topics like “The Lean Startup”, and “Social Media for Startups” were among the 11 seminars presented this year.

The BCIC-New Ventures Competition: Regional attracted more than 40 applicants, with 39 eligible candidates from across the province proceeding to Round 2.  In the second Round, entrepreneurs in cleantech, medical device technology, digital media, web and other industries pitched to a panel of industry experts. On December 3, we announced the Top 20, with representation from the Thompson-Okanagan, the Kootenays, Northern BC, the Sunshine Coast and Vancouver Island. Our three winners will be announced at the February 24 awards ceremony in Kelowna.

In closing, thank you to the applicants, volunteer mentors, board members, sponsors, judges and speakers who continue to ensure that the BCIC-New Ventures program is a key component to fostering innovation in British Columbia. Not only were we proud to celebrate our tenth anniversary this year, we were pleased to announce our new brand as the BCIC-New Ventures Competition. Thank you to our title sponsor BCIC for their continued support.

BCIC – New Ventures Executive Director Bob de Wit meets with Peter Cameron-Inglis, serial entrepreneur and founder of Canada’s Mastermind Development Corporation (CMDC), a business incubation, acceleration and venture capital firm focused on the tech industry in BC. They discuss the competition, its impact on BC tech outside of urban centres, and in particular the role of the competition in Kamloops where CMDC and their newly launched Race to a Million are based.

New Ventures BC 2009 Top 10 Finalist Rapid Electric Vehicles (REV) announced yesterday that they have delivered the first of four revolutionary all-electric APVs to the US Army Tank Automotive Research Center (TARDEC) in Hawaii this week in partnership with Honeywell Aerospace. At the Wheeler Air Force Base the vehicles will be part of TARDEC’s micro-grid demonstration making use of REV’s unique bi-directional charging capabilities.

APV stands for Ancillary Power Vehicle, all electric high performance fleet vehicles that are more than just zero emission trucks. APV’s include REV’s proprietary energy storage and powertrain system that allow vehicle operators to invert its stored electricity and power industrial equipment, buildings and homes, in effect a mobile energy transport system.

REV’s CEO Jay Giraud explains, “REV’s APVs lie at the intersection of the automotive and energy industries. Our APV technology is eliminating transportation emissions, networking large amounts of power and storage and making it highly accessible anywhere. APVs will change the definition of the car and bring accessible power and storage right into densely populated areas, where consumption is high and reliability is needed most.”

REV’s technology signifies a shift towards a more reliable grid system as more APVs hit the road. The US Military and Honeywell Aerospace is just one example of this shift. REV’s launch partners include more than 25 APVs for the City of Santa Monica, the City of Surrey, City of Welland, Burlington Hydro and a major undisclosed power utility. More REV APVs will be rolling of the assembly line throughout the new year.

REV has additional launch partners in the construction, utility, military and municipal segments with expected orders of more than 200 APVs in 2011. Following these launch orders REV is preparing to scale production beyond 15,000 vehicles through 2014.

Similar to the province-wide competition that celebrated its 10th anniversary in September, the four-month, three-round regional competition includes a unique mix of business education, networking and mentoring. This year’s regional competition attracted more than 40 applications from technology startups across our province.

The top 20 finalists include businesses in the life sciences, cleantech, sustainability, new media and high technology sectors.

They are:

The top 20 companies will now be paired with a team of mentors and will attend a final business education seminar in January. Each company will have one more chance to present to a panel of experts from February 9-11 in Victoria and Kelowna where they will convince a jury of venture capitalists, financiers and angel investors of the commercial viability of their business idea and that they have what it takes to succeed in the marketplace.

BCIC is the title sponsor of the 2010 BCIC-New Ventures Competition: Regional and proud to support the competition’s top three prize packages for a total of $60,000. They include the $30,000 BCIC First Prize, $20,000 BCIC Second Prize and $10,000 BCIC Third Prize.  This contribution is part of BCIC’s overall commitment of $390,000 as title sponsor of both the regional and larger provincial technology idea competition advancing BC’s emerging technology industry.

The winners of the 2010 BCIC-New Ventures Competition: Regional will be announced February 24, 2011 at a special reception.

Dave Schappell, Founder & CEO of Seattle’s Teachstreet.com will be the special guest at this week’s VEF Momentum event.

Dave focuses on developing the product vision, building the team and making TeachStreet an inspirational place to accomplish great things. Teachstreet has raised over $3m from Dave McClure, Madrona Ventures, Bezos Expeditions and several prominent angel investors.

Dave’s background includes an MBA from The Wharton School of Business, stints at online pioneers Amazon and JibJab, as well as being a board member and advisor to some of the hottest start-ups in Silicon Valley. He’s been a guest author on Techcrunch, and a general superstar in the tech space. He’s going to share his experiences on how to prepare for failure, getting customers to give you money, and how Teachstreet.com is revolutionizing local learning. Don’t miss out!

Just like every VEF Momentum event to date, you can expect some great networking. This event is on Friday, December 3rd at 6:00pm at Republic at 958 Granville Street. Tickets are $20 and you can register online.

Today New Ventures BC 2010 2nd place finisher Solegear Bioplastics was recognized for its innovative leadership with the 2010 CYBF (Canadian Youth Business Foundation) Best Green Business award. This is Solegear’s fifth major award since August 2010, and acknowledges the determination and entrepreneurial spirit of its founder, Toby Reid.

Frost & Sullivan, a leading global market research firm, recently presented Solegear with the 2010 New Product Innovation of the Year Award in Bioplastics before Solegear won an unprecedented three awards at the BCIC New Ventures competition.

“I am most grateful to have been supported by the CYBF and Small Business BC in Solegear’s early days. Five years in, the increasing recognition from investors and major organizations alike has produced revenues and a sales pipeline that was only a possibility back in 2006.” He continued, “That being said, we’re only just getting started. We are currently raising the capital to meet higher-than-expected market demand, to fund the installation of our own manufacturing facility and to make key hires, all of which are critical to achieving our business milestones. My hope is that we continue to attract quality investment partners to Solegear as we transition the plastics industry towards cleaner, safer, more efficient and more sustainable materials.”

In 2006, Reid founded Solegear with a vision of producing the world’s first 100% natural, high-performance biodegradable plastic to address exponentially growing pollution, increasing energy consumption and destabilizing oil supply. The CYBF, with assistance from Small Business BC, provided Reid with the initial funding to pursue this lofty goal.

In a Globe and Mail feature today about Angel investing, author Cathryn Atkinson asked the question How to find Super Angels? and we’re pretty happy with her advice.

The toughest task for any start-up is the search for funding. But a new breed of venture capitalist, the super angel, could be the answer to your prayers. Here are some suggestions for finding them, and winning them over:

Check out national or provincial organizations, such as New Ventures BC in British Columbia, that provide information on local angel-investment networks.

Greg Aasen, Chair of BCIC, announced this morning the appointment of Danny Robinson as Chief Executive Officer.

“Danny brings over 15 years of experience to BCIC and has a proven track record of successfully working with early-stage technology companies,” said Aasen. “Danny will be a great asset to our organization and will ensure that BCIC continues to play a leading role in promoting the development of entrepreneurs and the commercialization of technology in British Columbia.”

Prior to joining BCIC, Danny Robinson was co-founder of Bootup Labs which invested and mentored eight new Internet companies in the last two years. Along with his wife, Maura Rodgers , he was co-founder of the Bootup Entrepreneurial Society, a non-profit, community and mentor-driven organization that was formed to inspire entrepreneurship and help Internet startups take their idea from concept to commercialization.

“This is a tremendous opportunity to work with some of the best and brightest minds to create more tech startups in BC,” said Robinson. “In partnership with industry, academia, government and the dedicated team at BCIC, I am committed to ensuring our province continues to capitalize on the tremendous potential of our high tech companies.”

“The board is excited to bring the passion and energy of Danny to BCIC. His experience at Bootup will accelerate our mission of helping entrepreneurs and startups across all segments of British Columbia’s high tech community,” added Aasen.