December 2008

There were 9 posts published in December 2008 (this is page 1 of 3).

#hohoto – A Legend is Born

Occasionally you hear about an event and you know right away it is going to be a big deal.

#hohoto was one of those things. I could not be more proud of everyone who put this together, over $20,000 was raised for the Daily Bread food bank. The local CBC Station brags about raising $100,000+ for the food bank, so it shocks me that in just one night the Toronto Tech and Startup communities were able to do so much.

I think the team can do $80,000 at least next year. Ticket prices should go up. I would say 40$ but others might disagree, and sponsorship will certainly be more expensive.

Rob Hyndman was the driving force behind this, but a gigantic group took ownership and made this happen.

And a legend was born: (video embedded)

Tech Capital doubles bets on Overlay.TV and PostRank

techcapitalOverlay.TV and PostRank (formerly AideRSS) have both recently secured second rounds of funding from Tech Capital Partners, Overlay.TV raising $4.6M and PostRank raising a ‘significant round that will last well into 2010’. Also participating in Overlay.TV’s follow on financing were their other existing investors Edgestone and Celtic House.

In the current environment, it makes tremendous sense to top up the portfolio companies’ coffers so they have all the fuel they need to reach an exit. Of course, we would never cheer on VCs throwing good money after bad. Fortunately for Tech Capital these two portfolio companies have been making nice progress this year. Jacqui Murphy, Partner with Tech Capital Partners had this to say:

“We are very pleased with the progress the companies have made since our initial investments and are even more pleased to support them again.”

Overlay.TV has secured a number of high profile partners and users including the Jonas Brothers (no relation). And AideRSS has rebranded as PostRank and released a number of exciting new enhancements including Google Reader integration and a Full Access API.

Congrats to both Overlay.TV and PostRank on the recent raises!