Interested in Japanese Greentech applications?

GreenTech Exchange (GTEx) is excited to start 2012 with an insightful outlook on trends and the application of Green Technologies and Clean Energy in Japan. The focus is to identify business opportunities for Canadian companies.

This GTEx Forum will feature two knowledgeable speakers on Japan to address both the industry and government perspectives on Cleantech.

Mr. Keisuke Tsujimoto, General Manager of Japan Oil, Gas and Metals Corporation (JOGMEC) for the Vancouver Office, will present on the Japanese approach to global competition with electric vehicles and the government perspective on next generation systems for a low carbon transportation network.

Mr. Yasuhiko Ogushi, Industry Consultant, will then highlight industry cases in which BC and Canadian companies collaborated with Japan in a market for technology.

This GreenTech Exchange evening event takes place on Wednesday, January 18th at Harbour Centre, Simon Fraser University, Room 1400-1410. Register online.

Every other week another startup accelerator seems to pop up promising to help you grow your business by offering a mix of money and mentoring.

If you’re thinking of applying to you, you should ask yourself: Is an accelerator right for me and my business?

Vancouver-based GrowLab is looking for applications for their next cohort, so they have taken on the task of helping you answer that question.

On January 17th, GrowLab is hosting an Info Night for the startup community to explore the topic of accelerators a little further. GrowLab founders and portfolio companies will be there to share some insights and personal experiences that will hopefully help you determine if applying to an accelerator is the right move for your startup.

The Info night is at GrowLab headquarters at 116 West Hastings on January 17th from 5:30pm to 8:00pm. Register online for free.

Solegear gearing up for growth – December 2011 Update

When Solegear Bioplastics Inc. entered the BCIC-New Ventures Competition in 2010, the company had just started to commercialize its newly invented high-performance bioplastics: Polysole and Traverse.

Poplysole, which is made from plants and is non-toxic and compostable, can be used for making products ranging from personal care products to durable packaging to toys. Traverse, made of recycled virgin plastic combined with natural fibers such as wood, rice husks, hemp or bamboo, can be used to manufacture injection-molded products such as deck chairs, automotive parts and electronics. Read More…

Supercharging the economics of electric vehicles – December 2011 Update

Since completing the 2009 NVBC competition as one of 10 finalists, REV Technologies Inc. has moved from an unheated shack with a leaking roof to a heated and custom-renovated 8,000-square-foot office in Vancouver.

REV entered the competition with four unpaid employees and a new product — REV Pack — an electric drive system for transforming gas-guzzling fleet vehicles into electric zero-emission vehicles.

Since then, the company has grown to 16 employees and moved on to develop a server-based network and software system that it hopes will ultimately manage the stored energy of millions of electric vehicles (EV). Read More…

GreenTech Exchange 2011 Review
Innovation, Commercialization and the Greentech Ecosystem

Monday, December 19, 2011
Registration 5:30pm, event begins 6:00pm
Harbour Centre, Simon Fraser University Room 1400-1420
515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver

REGISTER

As 2011 is coming to a close, we invite you to join us for a review of the green/clean technology sector and what to anticipate in the new year. Mr. Elmer Sum of the GreenTech Exchange (GTE) will present observations and thoughts on this fast growing sector focusing on innovation, commercialization and the Greentech ecosystem. This is also a year-end networking event with a great opportunity to mingle with GTE members, industry participants, professionals, academics and students.

Free Event! Registration is now open to members; new members are welcome.

The Angel Forum is taking their show on the road and hosting an Exit Strategies Workshop for Investors & Founders in Surrey, BC on March 1, 2012.

Exit Strategies is a serious 8 hour workshop (not a 1 hour overview) with a 150+ page workbook. Learn strategies and tactics of selling a company from Steve Lukas (venture lawyer), Axel Christiansen (venture debt), and Basil Peters (M&A advisor). Both Lukas and Peters are regular speakers during the BCIC-New Ventures seminar series.

Basil Peter’s book Early Exits: Exit Strategies for Angel Investors and Entrepreneurs is included in your registration fee.

Register now to take advantage of the early-bird pricing. Register online for $285 today.

Quadrogen Power Systems won the 2010 BCIC New Ventures third prize and the BC Bioenergy Network Prize and went on to sell its first Integrated Biogas Clean-up System (IBCS) to a high-profile project at Orange County Sanitation District’s (OCSD) wastewater treatment plant in California.

Quadrogen’s system removes the contaminants found in biogas created from the anaerobic decomposition of organic matter such as sewage, manure and green waste. The result is an ultra-clean gas that can then be used for power and heat generation.

Quadrogen’s president, Alakh Prasad, says his company competed against six large, established U.S. companies to install a system at OCSD for cleaning the biogas from a wastewater digester so that it could be used in fuel cells to generate power, heat, and hydrogen. Read More…

The Women’s Executive Network honours 100 women who are 2011′s top achiever’s – and leaders – in Canada’s private, public and not-for-profit sectors. Among them this year are two members of the BCIC-New Ventures family.

Connie Linder was recognized in the Trailblazers and Trendsetters category and Cybele Negris was acknowledged in the Champions category.

Linder co-founded Vancouver-based Polymer Research Technologies Ltd. which won the top prize at the BCIC-New Ventures Competition for 2011. Negris is the President of Webnames.ca – a sponsor of the BCIC-New Ventures Competition.

Here are their write-ups from today’s Financial Post. Read More…

BCIC-New Ventures sponsor Vancity, along with Vancouver Foundation, announced today the launch of the Resilient Capital Program.

Included in the program is a new product for depositors who want to make a guaranteed fixed return on their money while backing social enterprises that are making a positive impact in the community. The program – a collaboration between philanthropy, the financial sector and government – started with a grant from the Province of British Columbia to Vancouver Foundation to invest in social enterprises.

The Resilient Capital Program is a unique, high-impact investment program that will help build resilient communities by making up to $15 million of patient capital available for qualifying social enterprises.

Tamara Vrooman, president and CEO of Vancity, says this new deposit product gives depositors a simple and attractive way to fund high-impact social enterprises without a high level of risk, and it provides much needed equity capital and loans with flexible repayment terms to the social enterprise sector. “This type of program is exactly what the Canadian Task Force on Social Finance recommended in its report,” says Vrooman. “As a locally based and owned financial cooperative, Vancity and its community partners have a unique opportunity to act as a catalyst to mobilize capital for social finance.”

In developing the Resilient Capital Program, Vancity and Vancouver Foundation each provided $1.75 million in first-loss revenues. This $3.5 million commitment has already been leveraged to attract an additional $6.85 million by way of Resilient Capital Term Deposits, long-term Vancity deposits made by 12 individuals and organizations:

Four years after winning first prize in the 2007 New Ventures BC competition, Augurex Life Sciences Corp. is on the brink of huge opportunities.

The Vancouver company has just completed clinical studies proving that its patented biomarker test for Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) identifies patients who have early onset of the disease. Researchers involved in the clinical tests say it captures an additional two out of every 10 patients with early-onset RA who are missed by other tests. They say this is hugely beneficial because the disease can cause irreversible joint damage within two years of symptom onset.

Augurex is now in the midst of negotiations with diagnostic companies around the world to commercialize and distribute the test. It measures a newly discovered protein that is elevated in the blood of patients with RA but is relatively absent in healthy people and those with other types of arthritis and autoimmune conditions.

Norma Biln, CEO of Augurex, says the test could become a disruptive technology in terms of advancing patient management and possibly changing the course of the disease.

“Our next challenge is to ensure there’s a successful uptake of the product,” says Biln. “You can launch it, but you need to ensure it’s properly promoted, since the test uses a novel protein that most people have never heard of.”

Augurex still has five employees and contracts out its research to Canadian research organizations. To date, the company has received about $4.5 million in funding from shareholders and government.

Now, Biln hopes to use the funds from impending commercialization agreements to pursue four more applications based on the same novel protein, for which several patents have been filed.

Two of the new patents focus on measuring the patient’s own immune response to the novel protein. The other two patents focus on therapeutically targeting the protein to eliminate it from the patient’s body, potentially treating RA.

“When we started, we had no idea where this would take us,” says Biln. “It took a lot of hard work and creativity to make these other discoveries and learn about where we could move things forward.

“It has turned into a much bigger opportunity than we expected.”