Mercury Launch: Ottawa Accelerator for Startups

I’m really excited to announce the launch of a new accelerator in Ottawa for web and mobile startups called Mercury Launch.

As I’ve often said, Ottawa has world class talent and the purpose of Mercury Launch is to rally the startup community to support entrepreneurs, build some world-class companies, and start celebrating our successes.

The program is similar to Y Combinator, TechStars, Founder Fuel, and Grow Labs with one notable exception.  You have to be in Ottawa to participate.  We’ve long been an exporter of talent in Ottawa.  It’s time we start helping ourselves and to put Ottawa on the map for the amazing companies that we build!

We will be selecting 4-5 companies to start a 3-month program beginning in September, 2011.  Each company will receive $25,000 in seed funding, a kick-ass office space (working with people like you who want to change the world), access to amazing mentors and key customers, and help launching your product on a global stage.

We’re actively seeking seasoned mentors and brilliant startups – so please check out the site, tell your friends, and be part of an exciting new chapter of the Ottawa startup scene!

We will be releasing additional information over the next couple of weeks including our all-star list of advisors, mentors, funders, and first class of startups!  You can follow the progress through our new twitter account here.

(ps. Huge cred to Robert Saric and the WhyHire.me team for building the new website.  Thanks Rob!!!)

Ottawa Network – May 25th

The Ottawa Network is putting on a great event this coming tuesday (May 25). Come hear about emerging trends in seed and early stage institutional financing, from Mark MacLeod and Raymond Luk of two new Montreal seed funding sources.  Both these guys are great so be sure to come out!

Raymond Luk (@rayluk)

Raymond is an entrepreneur and Angel investor based in Montreal. He runs Flow Ventures, a startup accelerator, and recently founded ArtAnywhere, an innovative art startup. He has built and managed a number of successful startups over the last decade and has been an executive of both private and public companies. Raymond is a well-known instigator of tech events including founding StartupDrinks Canada, the largest monthly networking event for startups in Canada. He is a Director of Symtext Corp., is the co-chair of the National Angel Capital Organization Summit for 2010, and a member of the Advisory Cabinet at Project Olympus, at Carnegie Mellon University.

Mark MacLeod (@startupcfo)

Mark MacLeod has been a CFO for numerous start-ups in the Montreal over the last 10 years, including most recently for Terapath, Tungle, Akoha and Status.net. He currently runs StartupCFO Enterprises – providing financial & strategic guidance and back office admin services for, you guessed it, start-ups, and he is one of the co-founders of Founder Fuel, a Montreal-based QC-government backed early stage opportunities fund.

Here is the info:

May 25th at 5pm
LaBarge Weinstein Office
515 Legget Drive, Suite 800
Kanata, Ontario

Register Online Here

Startup Boot Camp – Oct. 23rd, 24th and 25th

The Ottawa Network is putting on a great event this coming weekend.  Its called the Startup Boot Campis and its designed to bring together entrepreneurial minded people from Ottawa’s technology sector to lay the groundwork for new venture creation. The most promising company proposal judged at the end of the weekend will receive a $5,000 cash reward for incorporating within 45 days.  Here is some more info from the Ottawa Network Site:

Many successful ventures start with great teams, and this venue will broaden your exposure to like-minded and capable potential partners with complimentary skills. You will be in “startup mode” for the entire weekend –it may not be for everyone– and this will be a great test of how well it suits you. Naturally, the mix of attendees, innovative ideas brought forward, event guidance skills and everyone’s effort and interest will determine the outcomes.

The event will place 75-100 people into functional business teams around ideas for businesses. The participants, composed of developers, business managers, start-up enthusiasts, marketing gurus, accountants, lawyers, graphic artists and other roles will work together during the week end. At the end of 54 hours, they will have turned a business idea into a business plan ready to start on the Monday. A review panel at the end of Sunday’s presentation’s will determine which of the opportunities is the best developed and award a prize of $5,000 as the first seed money to start the business (e.g. incorporation costs, start a website, etc.). Similar networking events have evolved very successfully in other parts of North America with this one being the first in Ottawa.

You can register for this awesome event here.