Lift'Off's Venture'Challenge 2016 winners show how far startup community has come

The stakes were higher than ever before for Innovate Manitoba's annual Venture'Challenge competition held Wednesday, June 22 at the Fort Garry Hotel.

Judges and audience members unanimously agreed that the pitches by each of the six competitors were more polished than ever before. The competitors were selected as the top ventures participating in Innovate Manitoba's intense 3.5 day Launch'Pad Startup Skills Bootcamp held in May, 2016.

In addition to first, second and third cash prizes of $10,000, $7,000 and $3,000 respectively, contestants were also vying for an additional $100,000 in non-dilutive funding available to each of the three winners, courtesy of the Province of Manitoba.

Find out who won, learn more and check out all the photos >

Lift'Off 2016 keynote speakers and panelists provide invaluable insights

It's hard to believe that Innovate Manitoba can continue to improve on its premium Lift'Off startup conference year after year – but it does.

Audience members, which included a diverse mix of entrepreneurs, innovators, investors and advisors all spoke glowingly about the day, which saw three new companies each receive cash and in-kind prizes in excess of $100,000.
Once the dust settled after the announcement of the winners, top-notch serial entrepreneurs served up an afternoon of stellar keynote and panel discussions. Everyone left the event with something new in their toolbox. See story >

Newly minted Growth, Enterprise and Trade Minister Cliff Cullen brought greetings to the diverse crowd from the Province of Manitoba. The Minister noted the Province fully appreciates the value innovation and commercialization provides to Manitoba 's economy of the future, and offered up his support to the entrepreneurs putting themselves out there to compete in the Venture'Challenge program.

Serial entrepreneurs and investors Randy Smerik and April Dunford serve up some secret sauce for startup success

Randy Smerik set the stage for an exciting afternoon with his keynote presentation that included a provocative analogy on how we can all regret things we do in the throes of passion, especially when it comes to financing our businesses. The focus of his presentation was to encourage new entrepreneurs to be passionate about their businesses, while keeping their "eyes wide open"

Dunford describes herself as the "last girl standing", having literally sprinted from job to job at various enterprises and working with many during their growth phases. What she calls "product framing" was something she struggled with at pretty much every company. She described the traditional approach for "positioning" – identifying your target market, introducing your product and attempting to differentiate it by restating benefits that are usually the same as the competitors – as "the most useless thing we have been taught about business. Ever."

Read more about these serial entrepreneurs >

Successful exits can help drive an economy forward. Moderated by Innovate Manitoba president Jan Lederman, Kerry Green, Co-Founder of WolfTrax Inc., who exited at $95 million in 2015, and Tyler Gompf, Co-Founder of Tell Us About Us Inc. who exited in 2011 for an undisclosed amount, discussed how they successfully scaled and exited their businesses and the greatest challenges they faced along the way. Read more >

A crash course on the ins and outs of crowdfunding was the focus of the second panel of the afternoon. Moderated by Dustin Refvik, Co-Founder, FarmTrack Technolocy Inc. and TrapTap Inc., panelists Scott Adamson, Co-Founder, KickBooster and Yvan Boisjoli and Jason Myers, Directors and Co-Founders, Bold Innovation Group and Kickbooster provided a how-to for a successful crowdfunding campaign and described some of the tools now available to make your campaign go viral and to seamlessly transition into an online store. Read more >

At the end of the day Smerik, who participates in programs like this around the world, said he was again impressed by Innovate Manitoba and Lift'Off.

"This is an extremely well-run event that people are talking about in the startup community," said Randy Smerik, keynote speaker and two-time judge of Venture'Challenge. "The fact that Innovate Manitoba exists is the catalyst that everyone can rally to and you need that. I'm in other cities where there might be more startups and more people doing things but they don't have that catalyst. For the size of Winnipeg, it's the top of the pack in terms of being able to get things done."

Spotlight on Startups

Community Helps Drive Startup's Success

Daniel Blair has a few balls in the air and that's how he likes it. In a very short few years the graduate of the Business Information Technology Program at Red River College has gone from being a developer "who just wanted to build things" to founder and CEO of his own startup, Bit Space Development.

The company, which focuses primarily on helping clients bring their ideas to life through innovative technology solutions, including Virtual Reality (VR), was established in 2015.

Read more >

Manitoba Budget 2016 Extends/Enhances Tax Credit Programs

Manitoba Small Business Venture Capital Tax Credit (SBVCTC) and Interactive Digital Media Tax Credit (DMTC)

Finance Minister Cameron Friesen and Growth, Enterprise and Trade Minister Cliff Cullen announced on June 27, 2016 the extension of the SBVCTC to the end of 2019. The SBVCTC provides a 45% non-refundable tax credit to investors investing $20k or more in eligible Manitoba companies, subject to certain rules, including maximum investment amounts.

The Ministers also announced enhancements to the DMTC, including eliminating both the 2-year time limit for eligible projects and the cap of $500k per project. The DMTC provides a 40 per cent rebate to companies that pay at least 25 per cent of their wages to Manitoba employees as part of the credit program.

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Nancy Zubriski
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