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.”

Today 2007 New Ventures Competition 3rd Place finisher Bean Bean Services announced a new collaboration with Travelex Global Business Payments.

The partnership will provide companies with streamlined end-to-end payables processing, following recent surveys that continue to show a strong desire by businesses to do away with the labor-intensive, paper-based steps typically used to process and approve invoices while at the same time converting their B2B payments from costly paper checks to electronic delivered payments.

“As we transition into the electronic paperless age of approval workflow it’s imperative that controllers and CFO’s are able to quickly access as much of the transaction details as possible before approving for payment,” said Jarrod Levitan, CEO of Bean Services. “Combining Travelex’s world class payment solution with Beanbills’ visibility into the actual invoice image and workflow, creates a powerful tool for any organization who wants to take advantage of all the cost efficiencies in that process.”

Vancouver-based Bean Services’ mission is to increase office productivity through user friendly and innovative cloud based e-payables software.

Travelex is a global foreign exchange specialist providing the payment and receipt of domestic and international funds for businesses of all sizes.

2007 New Ventures BC Competition 3rd Place finisher Bean Services unveiled Beanbills Version 2.5 today, the newest version of its web based Accounts Payable Control & Automation Solution.

This major application update addresses key features requested by customers including email to “capture” to allow customers and their vendors to email invoices directly into Bean’s Auto-Capture service, easily eliminating data entry.

“That’s right, you can truly say goodbye to data entry!! We’re thrilled to be releasing this new version. It’s going to make managing and controlling the AP process even easier,” said Jarrod Levitan, Bean’s CEO. “Now users can easily email their invoices directly into Beanbills where they’ll be electronically captured, avoiding one additional step to manually scan paper. Since everyone uses email, this will greatly enhance the experience of using the Beanbills application.”

Founded in 2005, Bean Services mission is to increase office productivity through user friendly and innovative e-payables software.

In 2007, TeamPages Inc. won the $38,000 Enbridge second-prize package for its online social network for amateur sports teams.

Today, almost 30,000 teams, primarily in the U.S. and Canada, use TeamPages’ online tools to post their teams’ game and event schedules, track game scores and records, arrange carpools and volunteer schedules, and e-mail team members.

Since winning the competition, the company has moved from Victoria to Vancouver, grown from three to six employees and raised almost $1 million in financing. The company has also increased its services, offering league and club packages and online registration tools.

Company CEO Mike Tan says TeamPages should become profitable early this year. Revenues grew 10-fold in 2009 over 2008 and he expects to attract a further 50,000-100,000 teams this year.

Some of that growth will come from English-speaking countries around the world. Says Tan, “We’ve already had some potential international partners come knocking on our door to help bring TeamPages overseas.”

Much of TeamPages success, says Tan, “can be attributed to sticking to, and executing, our business plan, which was reconstructed, shaped, and improved with the help and advice of our NVBC mentors and the judges.”

Highlights over past two years:

• Employee growth: from 3 to 6
• Investment: $1 million
• Customers: 30,000
• Revenue growth 2008-2009: 10-fold
• Expected customer growth in 2010: 50,000-100,000

The second annual PICK 20 roundup of Canada’s leading Web 2.0 pioneers has been announced over at Backbone Magazine and eight of the twenty hail from British Columbia.

• NowPublic – Crowdsourced/participatory news gathering
• HootSuite – A Twitter toolbox that manages multiple Twitter profiles
• ThoughtFarmer – Intranet software which incorporates social networking features
• AfterCAD Online - Enables viewing and publishing complex data sets over the Web
• TeamPages – Website  creation and management service for amateur sports teams
• Clarity Accounting – Online accounting for small businesses and the self-employed
• Taglocity - Enterprise e-mail management and knowledge sharing
• Pixton – A site where people create, publish, share and remix comics

Of these BC-based Web 2.0 companies, you’ll recognize three from past New Ventures BC competitions. TeamPages was a runner-up in the 2007 competition and both Clarity Accounting and Taglocity were competitors in 2008.

Congrats to everyone on the list. It’s great to see BC so well represented as well as our New Ventures BC alumni.

On July 17th, the University of Victoria’s Bachelor of Commerce students specializing in Entrepreneurship will be heading to Vancouver to meet Vancouver entrepreneurs and everyone is invited. They’ll be hosting a Passion and Purpose Discovery Workshop at the Pan Pacific Hotel from 2:00pm to 5:00pm followed by a wine and cheese mixer from 5:00pm – 6:30pm.

The free workshop is meant to be “engagement tool” to help to foster networking among entrepreneurs and encourage discussion around the pursuit of entrepreneurial goals. It’s an opportunity to mingle with other entrepreneurs as well as about 60 enthusiastic students that are drawn to working with or as entrepreneurs. Most of the students will be completing their Bachelor of Commerce degree requirements this August.

If you can make it to the workshop, the wine and cheese reception, or both, please RSVP to Charlene Zietsma by email at czietsma@uvic.ca.

UVIC Grad Mike Tan of 2007 New Ventures BC competition runner-up Teampages is one of the organizers of the event.

Mike Tan of 2007 New Ventures BC finalist TeamPages is bringing a tradition from Vancouver Island over to the mainland and organizing a Vancouver Web Based Entrepreneurs Lunch for May 20th.

When TeamPages was back in Victoria there used be a lunch every month where all the web based companies would come together for lunch. It was an awesome way to share ideas, technology, seek advice, and build a stronger and more cohesive web based community in Victoria. I figured if we could have a monthly lunch in Victoria why not start one up in Vancouver.

The lunches are informal and there’s no monthly fee. We’ll pick restaurants that are reasonably priced (as we’re all start ups) and you can wear whatever you want (although some form of clothing is recommended). You can stay as long as you want to or can based on your busy schedules. This lunch is all about taking just a little bit of time out of our busy schedules to meet up and share. Please note this lunch is only for Web Based Entrepreneurs! Any non Web Based Entrepreneurs will have to sit at the kids table

12 of the 20 spots are spoken for, so if you’re web-based and interested head on over and sign-up now.

Bean Services, the 2007 third-place NVBC winner, has launched the commercial version of its online system for automating the accounts payables process.

CEO Jarrod Levitan says the service is already finding favour with construction companies, property management companies and shipping companies because they all have a lot of paper-based invoices to manage, often from multiple locations.

“Our system does a great job of reducing delays and allowing you to approve invoices online from anywhere,” he says.

The company completed a $400,000 round of angel funding in 2008 and has just started a second round for $750,000 to fund marketing and growth.

The company has added two full-time employees since the competition and also moved to bigger premises.
“We’re over the hump now and we’re on our way,” says Levitan. “Right now our focus is on growing our customer base through partnerships and forming sales channels.”

2007 NVBC Competition runner-up TeamPages was featured on Canada AM this morning.

Co-Founder Mike Tan continues to pile up his press mentions with an appearance on CTV’s morning show this morning. Tan and soccer coach Kent Green joined host Seamus O’Regan to talk about how TeamPages can simplify team organization thanks to its Facebook-like features.

Check out the video here – look for the link titled TeamPages allows players to keep in touch to skip past the rest of the broadcast.

Earlier this year, Tan and his startup team were featured on CBC’s Fortune Hunters. Kudos to their PR reps for the amazing coverage to date.

2007 New Ventures BC finalist TeamPages announced today that it has completed its second round of financing led by Burda Digital Ventures, W Media Ventures, and local angel investors, including Ralph Turfus, founder and past CEO of Class Software Solutions.

“Since our first round of financing, we have been listening closely to our community and heads down improving the product and making it easier to use. And it has really paid off. We are seeing upwards of 1200-1400 teams registering each month with this number steadily climbing as the busy spring sport season is approaching,” says Mike Tan, founder and CEO of TeamPages. “We are really excited about this round of financing. Not only will it help us continue to improve our platform and bring on more teams, but it has added a some really smart investors to our team as well.”

The new financing will be used to further develop its newly launched League and Club Management software and expand into larger youth sport associations, leagues, and clubs across North America.

TeamPages has been on a roll of late. Last month their profile ran on an episode of CBC’s Fortune Hunters and they also celebrated having their 10,000th team join the TeamPages community.

Congrats to Mike and his team on their success to date.