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Enter our Innovation Campaign: $100,000 is on the line And then read about Canada’s best tech offerings in the Backbone200 The second annual Innovation lion in annual revenue, we Bac kbone The 2 Annual Backbone Campaign is now live. Last year, want you to enter our contest. we at Backbone decided it was If you know someone who , time to get out of the stands could be our next winner, tell Start Me Up Innovation Campaign and join the game, so we crehim or her about the Innovaated the Innovation Campaign tion Campaign. to boost deserving Canadian Full details—including tech start-ups. From a list of eligibility rules and entry inhundreds of Canada’s beststructions plus the full prize and-brightest young compalist and the names of our sponsors and judges—is online at nies, our judges narrowed the field to 10 and then chose one winner and www.backbonemag.com/startmeup. The one runner-up. They received cash prizes, contest closes March 30th. mentorship opportunities, products and services (such as office space in some of Introducing the B200 Canada’s leading incubators) and ongoing Canada is a big place and technology procoverage in Backbone and on our Web site. gresses at warp speed. These two factors Winning paid off for EidoSearch and make it tough to stay up to date on our runner-up TitanFile, as both companies business tech scene. And that’s where the have experienced dramatic growth in the Backbone200 comes in. This is a brand new list of the best Canlast year. EidoSearch helps companies conduct analysis against complex data. ada offers in work, play and productivity The company doubled its customer base, solutions. We have information for those more than doubled it workforce, improved seeking funding, investment targets, highits user interface and increased its pack- paying jobs, events or e-learning, outsourcing and cloud providers. And we’re aged data sets. Secure file-transfer company TitanFile not all about business: we can also help landed $1.1 million in financing, which it is you buy a cool gadget, watch Kevin Spacey plowing back into product development yell at incompetent employees or read and expansion into the U.S. It was also about Steve Jobs yelling at incompetent selected by McInnes Cooper and Stewart employees. The companies, organizations McKelvey, the two largest Atlantic Canada and products that made the Backbone200 law firms, as a secure communication so- are not necessarily the biggest or richest; lution. “We were able to leverage the at- many are, but some entries are ones that tention from the campaign to get more our writers and sources felt were deservclients. It helped establish us,” said co- ing of recognition because they are promising, interesting or unique. founder Milan Vrekic. We don’t guarantee you’ll agree with Last year, TitanFile also released a new version of its product and the company all of our picks; in fact, we’re sure you has been successful in recruitment. Be- won’t, and we look forward to hearing ing the runner-up and receiving ongoing your feedback on our choices. But we do editorial coverage “helped us attract really promise that you’ll find much here that is interesting and useful. Who knows, maybe great people to the team.” The future looks bright for both com- your next employer or big business project panies. “Take what we did in 2012 and add is somewhere in the Backbone200? a multiplier to it,” said EidoSearch cofounder David Kedmey. We’re thrilled that we could help dePeter Wolchak serving Canadian start-ups, and now we’re Editor ready to do it again. If you run an earlypwolchak@backbonemag.com stage tech company with less than $2 milb u s i n e s s
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EDITORIAL Editor Peter Wolchak pwolchak@backbonemag.com Contributing Editor Lisa Manfield lmanfield@backbonemag.com Art Director Shelley Walker swalker@backbonemag.com Production and Prepress Peter Pasivirta Online Communications Manager Sue Ansell sansell@backbonemag.com Publishing Assistant Vera Lourenco vlourenco@backbonemag.com Contributing Writers Trevor Marshall, Jim Harris, Danny Bradbury, Lawrence Cummer, Ian Harvey,Gail Balfour Contributing Illustrators Jon Berkeley, Gavin Orpen, Vin Ganapathy Contributing Photographers Steve Uhraney, Miguel Hortiguela
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