InNOVAcorp to announces provincial winner
InNOVAcorp will announce the Nova Scotia winner of its technology start-up competition Feb. 12 during an awards ceremony in the World Trade and Convention Centre in Halifax.
The winner will be awarded a $100,000 seed equity investment from InNOVAcorp, a provincial crown corporation.
Morswift Machines of Digby, already has won a prize package valued at prize $100,000 from InNOVAcorp after finishing first among 18 companies in Digby, Annapolis, Kings and Hants counties.
Roland Swift, president of the Digby company, invented a machine that semi-automatically bands together just about anything that needs packaging. The idea started out as a way to band lobsters but now has moved on to vegetables and building supplies.
He has signed a licensing agreement with Clements Industries of New Jersey, which will build and market the machines in the United States and around the world.
In all, 121 companies entered the technology start-up competition in five zones across Nova Scotia. The companies submitted business plans and then made oral pitches to a panel of judges.
The $100,000 prizes already won by the five zone winners were partly in cash and partly in ‘in-kind’ business counseling services. Some of this coaching was meant to help prepare the companies for the provincial final Feb. 12.
InNOVAcorp says the purpose of its I-3 competition is to identify and support high potential early stage Nova Scotia knowledge-based companies, and encourage entrepreneurial activity across the province. Businesses chosen as first and second place winners are seen as examples of types of companies that will fuel Nova Scotia’s future economic growth.
