Village Gamer

The Honourable Gordon O’Connor, Minister of State and Member of Parliament for Carleton-Mississippi Mills, on behalf of the Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), has announced an investment of up to $1,947,250 that will help three Ottawa-area start-up businesses get their innovative products and ideas to market faster, and create jobs and economic growth in southern Ontario.

The investment will allow these businesses to leverage a total of $3.9 million in additional private sector investments from venture capital and southern Ontario angel investors. These projects are expected to create 40 high-quality jobs in the information technology sector in southern Ontario over the next two years.

“Our government is investing in the residents, businesses and communities of southern Ontario to create high-quality jobs and sustain economic growth,” said Minister of State O’Connor. “This investment will allow Benbria, Protecode and Toushay to develop new products, branch out to new markets, enhance their competitiveness and create high-value job opportunities for southern Ontario.”

The funding, which is being provided through the FedDev Ontario’s Investing in Business Innovation initiative, breaks down as follows:

• $750,000 for Toushay Inc., to create a software platform that lets businesses easily design, create and manage their own mobile applications for marketing and related interactions with customers;
• $680,000 for Protecode Inc., to develop and commercialize software that lets developers identify intellectual property issues, reduce licensing uncertainties, enhance quality and security, and ensure compliance with open source and third party licenses
• $517,250 for Benbria Corp., to develop an intelligent notification system that allows organizations to spread information to targeted audiences instantly, and act on the responses.

The Investing in Business Innovation initiative is designed to boost private sector investment in start-up businesses to accelerate the development of new products, processes and practices and bring them to market. This initiative is also designed to help angel investor networks and their associations attract new investment and support the growth of angel investment funds.