Cascadia Summit Closes Starup Week with a Bang

Vancouver, BC, Nov 24, 2014 –  On Friday, November 21st Launch Academy, Plug and Play Canada and Boast Capital drew a crowd of over 500 investors, entrepreneurs, corporate executives, government representatives, media, and more to Cascadia Summit, the official closing event of Startup Week Vancouver.

After receiving more than 100 applications from startups around Canada and the USA, 16 finalists presented to an esteemed panel of judges, including Dafina Toncheva from US Venture Partners, Sumeet Jain from Intel Capital, Bill Bryant from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Alireza Masrour from Plug and Play Ventures, Mahendra Ramsinghani from Mod N Labs, and Frederic Lardinois from TechCrunch.

The top three selected startups will receive a term sheet for $25,000 investment from Plug and Play Canada; an opportunity to spend time in Silicon Valley at the Plug and Play Tech Center to gain exposure, build their business and network with influential players in the technology industry. The three selected finalists were:

  • Optigo Networks is a connectivity solutions for intelligent buildings. It allows building owners/operators to securely and reliably connect thousands of smart devices in the building Internet of Things (IoT).
  • Control is a complete transaction reporting, analytics and management application for web and mobile. It enables merchants to view data from various payment platforms and act on specific & time sensitive transactions. Control supports payment platforms such as Stripe in North America and Paymill in Europe.
  • Magicflix is a safe, curated video service for kids. MagicFlix is a video subscription service/app that is available across leading mobile and tablet platforms. Videos are classified and curated for ages 3-6, 6-8 and 9-12 and enables parents to set time limits, content preferences as well as view reports of usage.

Both Optigo Networks and Control are Vancouver-based companies and Magicflix is based in Seattle.

Special guests included the Minister of Technology Innovation and Citizens’ Services Andrew Wilkinson and Ian McKay, CEO of Vancouver Economic Commission, with Minister Wilkinson delivering the opening keynote address.

“Congratulations to all the companies who were shortlisted to be part of the Cascadia pitch competition, including 12 from B.C.,” said Minister of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services Andrew Wilkinson. “The Cascadia Summit draws hundreds of people from across Western Canada and the U.S. and showcases our province as a great place for tech companies to grow and for industry leaders to invest.”

This Summit was the fifth Cascadia event for Launch Academy. Previous Cascadia winners have included Farm at Hand, Nanu Interactive, and BitLit, whom have all continued on to raise millions of dollars in funding.

“I am extremely proud of the Launch Academy and Boast Capital teams for delivering such a high-caliber event here in Vancouver.” says Launch Academy Executive Director, Ray Walia.

“Not only is Cascadia an opportunity to really showcase the kinds of high-quality startups and talent coming out of Vancouver and our partner cities in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Washington, but it’s also a demonstration of Launch Academy’s ability to connect the Cascadia region to Silicon Valley.”

In just two and a half years, Launch Academy has incubated over 200 companies who have created over 400 jobs in the economy and collectively raised over $27,000,000 in seed funding.

Cascadia Summit concluded Vancouver Startup Week, a weeklong series of events around the city to celebrate the tech community and startup ecosystem. The recap video is available here: http://vimeo.com/112605971

About Launch Academy

Launch Academy is a pre-accelerator program that helps entrepreneurs execute on their startups through education, mentorship, lean metrics and networking opportunities. Launch Academy has established an environment where ideas are vetted, business models are tested and successes are celebrated. For more information visit: http://www.launchacademy.ca.

About Boast Capital

Boast Capital is a team of engineers and finance professionals with over 20 years experience

helping companies in Canada and the U.S. successfully claim and maximize R&D tax credits. For more information visit: http://boastcapital.com.

About Plug and Play

Plug and Play is a global startup incubator and seed-stage investor with a network that includes over 300 tech startups, 180 investors, and a community of leading Universities and Corporate partners. Since its inception in January 2006, Plug and Play has helped the startup community raise over $1 billion in venture funding, and has invested in 100+ companies including PayPal, Dropbox, Lending Club and Zoosk. For more information visit: http://plugandplaytechcenter.com.