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. (more…)

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. (more…)

2010 2nd Prize winner Solegear Bioplastics announced partnerships this week with the University of British Columbia and Ecole Polytechnique to support the research and development of additional innovations in bioplastics. The partnerships will enable Solegear to work with the chemical and biological engineering departments at these institutions to innovative the bioplastics space.

“Solegear’s Polysole and Traverse bioplastic materials are already demonstrating that they can replace and, in some cases, outperform traditional petroleum-based plastics. While we are pleased with this initial success, we remain committed to innovation and to expanding our commercial opportunities,” said Solegear CEO, Toby Reid. “By partnering with these leading institutions, we are ensuring that we can access the kind of thinking that will help us to not only stay on the leading edge of our industry, but to continue to move towards tangible, climate-focused solutions that have significant returns for the Canadian economy.”

The 30th Angel Forum took place on October 17th in Vancouver and over 100 entrepreneurs, investors and sponsors were in attendance. Among them were over 50 registered investors and 18 presenting companies.

The day-long event wrapped up with the Angel Forum crowning the 2011 BC Angel Investor of the Year as well as the Investor Choice Award winners.

In 2009 legendary angel investor Mike Volker was awarded the inaugural BC Angel Investor of the Year award and last year the award went to the angel investor Paul Geyer. For 2011, the Angel Forum recognized active angel Boris Wertz of W Media Ventures.

Among the companies recognized for the Investor Choice Awards was 2010 BCIC-New Ventures Round 2 competitor Aeos Biomedical of Vancouver who were named the “Best Company likely to be Acquired”.

Congrats to all the winners on another great forum.

Today in the Vancouver Sun Scott Simpson updated the world on BCIC-New Vetnures Competion 2010 winner HiretheWorld.

Twin brothers Terry and Doug Beech and partner Arash Afrooze took the top prize last year winning $100,000 in cash and $23,000 of in-kind services.

HiretheWorld will be attending the 2011 Awards ceremony tonight as guests handing out one of the main prizes for this year’s crop of contenders.

A lot has changed in the past year for HiretheWorld.

The web-based company that concentrates on graphic design is 20 strong, including 15 full-time staff who have been hired in the past year. They recently moved from a shared incubator office at Simon Fraser University to a much bigger space in Gastown. And late last year HiretheWorld was selected by Oxford University as winner of a global competition and they proceeded to attract investment from Vancouver venture capitalists Nicholas James Corp.

Check out today’s article in the Vancouver Sun for the full story and look out for HiretheWorld at the Awards Ceremony tonight.

Photograph by: Ward Perrin, PNG Files, Vancouver Sun

The 10 Finalists in Accelerate Okanagan’s Jump:Start Challenge have been announced following the first round which took place in Kelowna last Thursday.

The challenge started with 27 entrants being invited to present their pitches at an open forum. 10 companies were then selected by an expert panel of judges to move on to the next round of the challenge, where they will receive nine weeks of intense training, coaching, and mentorship to improve their investor presentations.

Among the ten finalists are four former New Ventures competitors.

Hustream Technologies and Rapid Water Testing were in the Top 20 in last year’s BCIC-New Ventures Competition:Regional and Digniti Home Hospital (2010) and ElectroMotion Energy (2011) were competitors that made it through to Round 2 in their respective years.

In November, the 10 finalists will be narrowed down further to the final 5 companies, which will each have the opportunity to present before members of the investment community in Vancouver and Kelowna.

Prizes for the top three companies will include free enrolment for one year in Accelerate Okanagan’s Venture Acceleration Program, which helps high potential technology companies accelerate their growth and maximize their opportunity. The overall winner will also receive one year’s free office space at Accelerate Okanagan’s Kelowna or Penticton innovation centres.

Since winning the BCIC New Ventures Competition in September 2010, Hiretheworld.com has grown from a kitchen-table enterprise with three employees to new office space in Vancouver’s Gastown for 18 employees.

Hiretheworld.com is a global service marketplace where businesses and individuals can hire, manage and pay remote freelancers or teams.

The company started up with a graphic design contest in which employers can solicit design ideas from around the world and pay for the one they like best.

Today, hiretheworld has expanded the concept to include an idea contest for generating creative writing solutions, a video contest, a viral video contest that generates social media analytics, and an employment platform where customers can hire individual experts from around the globe.

Co-founder Terry Beech says the employment platform grew out of employers’ interest in hiring the winners of their contests for further jobs. Hiretheworld.com’s top logo designer, for example, lives in Tunisia. After winning many of the design contests, he has built up an impressive portfolio and is in demand from employers all over the world.

“We handle all of the payment issues so that employers don’t have to worry about how to pay someone in Tunisia or India,” says Beech. “We also have a new hourly monitoring software that allows you to hire a workforce abroad and monitor them passively as if they’re working in your office.” The software tracks mouse clicks and web browsing and also takes random screenshots that track a remote worker’s time on the computer.

“What has motivated this company from the get-go is that we want people to be able to work from wherever they are with no geographical barriers,” says Beech. “As long as you have an Internet connection you should have access to the same opportunities as everybody else. Your quality of life shouldn’t be based on where you were born.”

Over the past year, Hiretheworld.com has raised $500,000 in a seed round of investment with Oxford University and Nicholas James Corporation of Vancouver.

“For the first six months after closing our initial round we were highly focused on development,” says Beech. “We are now in the process of ramping up our sales and marketing and are looking to gain further traction going into a series A growth round.”

Beech says sales in the first quarter of 2011 surpassed sales for all of 2010.

The Launch@GROW event is 15 days away and today they announced the 15 finalists that will have the opportunity to launch at the event on on August 17th.

Eleven current and past New Ventures BC competitors were among the 61 Canadian startups that applied to launch at GROW and today four made the cut and have the opportunity to pitch live on stage the following day at the GROW Conference.

• Warranty Life – 2011 Round 3

• StoryPanda – 2011 Round 2

• MentionMapp – 2011 Round 2

• Jostle – 2010 Top 10
  

If you have already registered for the GROW Conference then Launch@GROW is including in your registration. If you’re not attending GROW, get yourself a ticket to Launch@GROW now before they’re all gone.

Good luck to everyone.

Last year’s inaugural GROW Conference in Vancouver was a huge success and it’s returning to the West Coast again this August 17-19th.

This year GROW Conference organizers are working with the Bootup Entrepreneurial Society to host a contest for startups called Launch@GROW contest.

The deadline for startups to enter the contest has passed but not too late to support past and present New Ventures BC competitors that have entered. You’ve got until July 16th to vote your favorite startup through to the Top 25 so that judges can consider them for selection into the Top 15.

The Top 15 will Launch @ GROW on the evening of August 17th and four of those startups will be selected to pitch live on stage the following day at the GROW Conference.

Check out the participating New Venture BC competitors below and vote for your favorite now.

2011 Round 3 companies

• Chatterblock
• FundRazr
• Warranty Life
• Wifarer

2011 Round 2 companies

• StoryPanda
• Foodtree
• MentionMapp

2010 Top 10 companies

• Jostle
• Tingle

2010 Round 3 companies

• Carrotlines

2009 Round 2 companies

• CrowdFanatic

Good luck to everyone.

Solegear Bioplastics cleaned up in the 2010 New Ventures BC competition finishing 2nd overall but also taking home the BC Hydro Prize for Sustainability and BCIC Economic Impact Award.

Yesterday that continued to make news with a great article and interview in the Globe and Mail titled Let them eat plastic.

To illustrate the environmental benefits of his company’s products, Solegear’s Toby Reid literally eats plastic. “They taste awful,” he says of the small round pellets marketed as Polysole. “But they’re pretty darn safe.”

It helps that the pellets in question are bio-plastic – 100 per cent non-toxic, biodegradable and made from organic material. Mr. Reid hopes Polysole will transform the plastics industry from petroleum to plant-based.

Take a minute to read the entire article and interview with Solegear CEO Toby Reid (pictured) by the Globe and Mail’s Shelley White.