Venture Capital

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

March 3, 2023 at 11:42 am

Student housing The “collective enterprise” UTILE (L’Unité de travail pour l’implantation de logement étudiant) was established in 2013 “with the objective of developing a social economy student housing model specific to Quebec inspired by best practices in non-profit student housing around the world.” In 2016, working with the the ChantierRead More

Meta Materials Revisited

Meta Materials Revisited

December 14, 2022 at 11:53 am

Editor’s Note: I know what you’re thinking—the holidays are almost here, why am I not doing a year in review or some heartwarming, holiday-themed stories, or raising money for a food bank? Why am I on about that nano-materials company in Dartmouth again? The answer is a) because I haveRead More

SEC Says Influencers Pumped & Dumped Torchlight

SEC Says Influencers Pumped & Dumped Torchlight

December 14, 2022 at 11:51 am

On Tuesday, the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas against the following eight defendants: Edward Constantin aka MrZackMorris aka Edward Constantinescu Perry Matlock aka PJ Matlock Thomas Cooperman aka Tommy Coops Gary Deel aka Mystic Mac MitchellRead More

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

December 9, 2022 at 11:31 am

Eureka! I have been trying for some time now to articulate the problem with venture capital, especially as it was practiced in this province by Innovacorp—and now by Invest Nova Scotia, under the possibly capable but definitely expensive ($1,500 a day up to $18,000 a month) leadership of our premier’sRead More

Home-Grown Private Equity/Venture Capital?

Home-Grown Private Equity/Venture Capital?

March 9, 2022 at 12:46 pm

Once again, big thanks to a spectator for alerting me to the newly launched Cape Breton Capital Group website and for their useful comments and questions about this operation, some of which I will reproduce here today, being careful to give credit where credit is due. The Cape Breton CapitalRead More

Q3 2021: Extensions, Elections and Unicorns

Q3 2021: Extensions, Elections and Unicorns

December 15, 2021 at 11:52 am

My summer coverage focused on the August provincial election, although I also found time to read Barry Sheehy’s thoughts on ports and Martin Chernin’s case for extending his waterfront development contract (not exactly beach reading, but not entirely devoid of entertainment value either). September found me looking into the problemRead More

Q4 2021: Contracts, Cruise and Cabot

Q4 2021: Contracts, Cruise and Cabot

December 15, 2021 at 11:51 am

The last three months of 2021 found me, as always, following CBRM happenings — particularly around waterfront development and cruise news — but also looking further afield at stories with local angles or implications. In particular, I got interested in how some Saint Lucians were responding to the arrival ofRead More

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

December 10, 2021 at 10:25 am

Hey, ladies In this week’s Innovacorp article, I referenced an event sponsored by the corporation in 2013 — an evening with a character by the name of Geoff Lewis. Here’s the breathless description of the festivities from the Innovacorp website: On May 30, 2013, Geoff Lewis commandeered the atrium atRead More

An Innovacorp Case Study

An Innovacorp Case Study

December 8, 2021 at 11:49 am

I’m going to keep picking away at the list of companies in which Innovacorp has invested to find out what happened to each of them, but I thought this week I’d show you how unnecessarily difficult this can be in some cases. My example is the first company in theRead...

Innovacorp: Which Way Out?

Innovacorp: Which Way Out?

December 1, 2021 at 1:14 pm

This week, I thought I’d give myself a bit of a break, research-wise, by focusing on Innovacorp’s exits between 2011-2012 and 2020-2021. If you’re wondering why I keep choosing that timeframe, it’s basically, as I should have explained earlier, because Innovacorp did. The agency, which was founded in 1995, changedRead...