Novia Capital recent VC investment in Calgary based social network monetizing company - Tynt http://www.tynt.com
This is our first investment in Western Canada. Tynt develops leading edge hosted solutions for online publishers, social networks and online communities. Their value is their capability to help generate revenue and increase user engagement. Tynt has developed really cool technology put together an amazing management team to deliver. Derek Ball, Dayton Foster and Allan MacKenzie are the founders of the Company.
The ideas is great and the technology is solid, the management team on the other hand, is just amazing:
Derek Ball – CEO – has been a leader in the emerging technology industry for over a decade and a half. Prior to Tynt, Derek was CEO of Sonic Mobility Inc. which built software for mobile handheld devices and was acquired by Avocent Corp (NASDAQ: AVCT) in 2004. In between Sonic Mobility and Tynt, Derek served as Entrepreneur In Residence for Calgary Technologies Inc. coaching dozens of early stage tech ventures. Derek has extensive experience in early stage ventures having raised millions of dollars in capital for his own start-ups and working with strategic partners such as Microsoft, RIM, HP, Lockheed Martin and the US military. Derek has also published over a dozen books in emerging technology and has been a noted speaker worldwide for over many years.
Dayton Foster – COO – Dayton has over a decade of experience growing start-up technology ventures. At Tynt, Dayton is responsible for guiding product development. Prior to Tynt, Dayton was Vice President of Research & Development for Sonic Mobility Inc. which built software for mobile handheld devices and was acquired by Avocent Corp (NASDAQ: AVCT) in 2004. In between Sonic Mobility and Tynt, Dayton served as Director of Mobile Technologies for Avocent Corp. Dayton has also co-authored 3 books in emerging technology for McGraw-Hill and is asked to speak to technology startup companies on topics as diverse as pricing theory, channel development and software development process.
Allan Mackenzie – Executive Chairman - Allan has an exceptional investment and operational track record within the high technology and other industries. Allan is a high profile investor in the Calgary community having led or participated in the financing of several successful start-ups (Exits include Teamplate, Sonic Mobility, WestJet Airlines, Quack.com, SideStep) Along with this, Allan has also had the personal experience in building a rapid growth technology company. Allan was the CFO at Quack.com which was sold to AOL for $200 million one year after it was incorporated. Allan is presently a partner in Calgary based Octane Venture Partners.
I’ve attached a copy of the full press release below for those interested.
Chris...
Tynt Multimedia Closes $5 Million Series A Investment
- Tynt enters beta with key partners -
Calgary, Canada, March 2, 2009 - iNovia Capital, a manager of seed and early stage venture capital funds, today announced its investment in Calgary-based Tynt Multimedia to complete the closing of a $5 Million financing round that included existing angel investors and the Alberta Value Added Corporation (AVAC Ltd.).
Tynt addresses the biggest challenge online publishers and site operators face today in achieving revenue goals; understanding, evidencing and driving user engagement. Tynt’s Tracer service can monitor and track when users copy content from a web site and further attach attribution to the copied copyrighted content. This provides actionable indication of the content most valued by users, drives additional traffic back to customer sites and enhances search engine optimization strategies. Tynt’s annotation tools further increase user engagement by enabling in-context discussion on customer sites.
“Having iNovia as a capital partner is a key strategic development for us”, said Derek Ball, CEO of Tynt, “In this challenging market online content publishers must find ways to benefit when their content is spread across the Internet by their readers. Our self-service enrolment allows publishers and bloggers to start gaining insight into audience behaviour in minutes.”
“Derek has assembled a world class team and they are laser focused on a huge, unaddressed problem with unique and patent pending intellectual property” said Shawn Abbott, Partner with iNovia Capital. “Tynt fits our digital media strategy and also has a high degree of synergy with our existing portfolio.”
“We are thrilled that iNovia has joined AVAC in supporting Tynt,” said Ross Bricker, CEO of AVAC Ltd. “One of the markers of success for companies within AVAC’s portfolio is the securing of subsequent investment from firms like iNovia. We saw Tynt’s potential to be a disruptive force in the global social networking marketplace and we are delighted by the company’s progress to date.”
About Tynt
Tynt develops leading edge hosted solutions for online publishers, social networks and online communities to increase user engagement and maximize revenue. Tynt was founded in 2007 by serial entrepreneurs Derek Ball, Dayton Foster and Allan MacKenzie in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. For more information, visit www.tynt.com
About iNovia Capital
iNovia Capital manages seed and early stage venture capital funds, with a focus on helping entrepreneurs and innovators build successful companies in the sectors of information technology, life sciences and cleantech. iNovia Capital's value-added approach to early stage investing provides portfolio companies with capital, unique access to intellectual property from its extensive network of industry partners and academic partner institutions, advisors and sector-specific co-investors. For more information, visit www.inoviacapital.com
About AVAC Ltd.
AVAC Ltd. is a private not-for-profit company that invests strategically in promising early-stage commercial businesses focusing on the expansion of Alberta’s value-added agribusiness, ICT, life sciences, and other industrial technology sectors. AVAC also participates in commercially-relevant agricultural research and is a strategic fund-of-fund investor in early stage venture capital. Created in 1997, and with the support of the Alberta and Canadian Governments, AVAC has invested in over 110 early-stage companies who have reported over $325 million in aggregate project-related sales to date. AVAC has also invested in 38 agriculture research programs and projects, and 3 venture capital funds including iNovia Capital. For more information, visitwww.avacltd.com
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