Montreal Start Up

Last night was the annual “Les Anges Financiers de Montréal” Gala. It was a well organised event that culminated in prizes being awarded in 5 catagories:

Start-Up

Servivap - Servivap Canada manufactures and distributes industrial water treatment products for Vapour-generating boilers and cooling systems. Their exclusive biodegradable products generate energy saving costs of upto 15% without any capital investment.

Expansion

Emovendo - Emevendo have developed a suit of relationship marketing technologies, particularly for Online Customer Acquisition. Very well presented by the Founder Alexandre Pettelier whose has had previous start-up experience.

Jury’s Pick (coup de coeur)

Matrix Evolutions - Matrix Evolutions has developed a state-of-the-art machine in the roofing industry: the Shingles Peeler. The SP, as I like to call it, simultaneously tears of shingles and nails without any physical effort. “C’est pas incredible ca !” It really was a bit of a Tetes a Clacques moment - pas un, pas deux mais quatre fois plus vite !

Innovation

Pakwa Technologies (no website) - Medical diagnostic tools company that was created by Yves Martin to bring to market technologies developed at the University of Sherbrooke.

Banque National Prize

Proximo - Proximo Systems provide an OEM”able” hosted VOIP solutions for businesses and carriers.

In general I was impressed by the quality of the presentations even though most of them were outside my field of interest. One presentation that I did find interesting was by Ashkan Karbasfrooshan of Mojo Supreme. Mojo Supreme runs the watchmojo.com Web TV portal. Prior to this venture Ashkan was responsible for the majority of the Ad sales activity at AskMen.com. He knows his product well and is obviously an accomplished salesman. Something to watch.

There were a number of VC’s represented including Garage, BDC Venture Capital and Propulsion Ventures. It is hard to guess the actual number of Angel Investors at the event and it will be interesting to see how many of these companies actually get funded.

In summary, events such as this help in providing a concentrated focus on start-up entrepreneurs. Perhaps more importantly though, this event reinforces the fact that Angel Investors are an essential part of the VC funding mix and that it is essential to recognise and support their investment efforts.