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P.E.I Government Finally Has a New Website

The P.E.I Government finally launched a new website, this site allows the visitor to apply for a wide range of services, from healthcare to applying for jobs, even Renew a Motor Vehicle Registration.

Check out the site Here

 

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Open data on P.E.I. ‘a great start’

‘Once you open the boundaries, you just let the creativity flow. It can be amazing what people come up with’

By Sara Fraser, CBC News Posted: Jun 14, 2016 5:27 PM ATLast Updated: Jun 14, 2016 5:27 PM AT

(Note: CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external links.)

The provincial government is following through on a promise made by Premier Wade MacLauchlan when he became Liberal leader: making some government information more accessible to the public, which he did Tuesday via a new government website

“We have an opportunity to be innovators in making government data open and accessible,” MacLauchlan said Feb. 21, 2015.

Open data is data that can be freely used, re-used and redistributed by anyone. There’s a movement by advocates to open databases in P.E.I. and around the globe — open data has even spawned summits, the latest in Saint John, N.B. a few weeks ago

“Our group is very excited,” said Michael Easter, 47, who leads the Open Data Book Club on P.E.I. Instead of getting together to discuss books, the group develops apps around data that has been made available to date.

“It’s pitch perfect in terms of the implementation,” Easter adds, noting there are one or two data sets so far from each government department — things like mussel monitoring, and data on purchase of conservation-themed licence plates.

Easter and other developers note the government’s licencing agreement is “finely crafted” and exactly what they asked for. 

‘Really fun’

“This is a great start. I’m sure there’s many more files to come,” enthused Easter. At least half a dozen developers excited at Tuesday’s news plan to immediately delve into the data, he said.

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Freelance software developer Michael Easter says the open data is ‘pitch perfect in terms of the implementation.’

“Once you open the boundaries, you just let the creativity flow. It can be amazing what people come up with.” 

Open data can encompass a diverse range of information, including geographical maps and meteorological data, traffic data, real estate listings, building permits, health data, lists of government lobbyists, business licences and survey responses. Social scientists, activists, non-profits, computer programmers, educators and businesses can all analyze that data for their own ends — like bus route planning. 

Apps created using open data include plow trackers, which shows users where snowplows are second-by-second, to those that issue reminders about what trash to take to the curb the next morning. There’s even an app that will match food inspections with restaurant reviews.

“This is really fun for coders,” who like to write apps that give back to the community, said Easter. 

Enterprise IT architect and self-professed P.E.I. data geek Joshua Biggley sent out kudos to government for the move Tuesday, pointing out he’d like Application Programming Interface, which allows software developers easier access, to be next. It’s “open data secret sauce,” he joked.  

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New engineering grads get the kinks out of potato farming

Inside Prince Edward Island’s sleek new engineering school, students are putting their heads together to save the spuds.

Members of at University of Prince Edward Island’s School of Sustainable Design Engineering’s first graduating class have come up with a brand new solution to an age old problem for the province’s primary industry – how to keep rocks out of potato bags.

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The University of Prince Edward Island’s School of Sustainable Design Engineering has given its third-year students a chance to gain real, hands-on industry experience at Allan Farm Equipment in Covehead, Prince Edward Island – a steel manufacturing facility that specializes potato harvesting equipment.

Owner Trent Cousins, who was  named one of 21 young leaders for the 21st century by 21 Inc., has been working with the students on this critical piece of equipment that will keep rock-bruised potatoes out of bags where they rot and spoil the whole bunch. The marketplace is very competitive and “we wouldn’t want anybody else to get the edge that we might have,” says Cousins. Student Luke Bennett says his experience with his team at Allan Farm Equipment has been “just how learning to be an engineer should be.”

The 23 year-old Cape Bretoner says he has been calling friends at engineering school at Dal and UNB and telling them “you should have come here.”

What’s got him so jazzed is his third year project in this unique program model. It’s a real deal with a real PEI company where he and his team are helping solve a problem that has long plagued Island potato farmers.

“You wouldn’t believe the amount of interest we had from farmers on this,” he said.

Bennett says he is excited to get up and go to school every morning because he isn’t sitting in a classroom doing calculations, but heading to Covehead to put his book smarts into practice with an industry partner.

NEW Bachelor of Science in Engineering (Sustainable Design Engineering) at UPEI

The new Engineering school’s broad-based curriculum is hands-on. This year will see the first full graduating class. Last year, UPEI expanded its two-year engineering program to four, meaning students can complete their degrees in the province without leaving for other universities. The students have been divided into three groups and are helping fix design problems for PEI potato, lobster and blueberry industries.

The provincial government committed $12 million for capital to the new School of Sustainable Design Engineering at UPEI with another $4 million for recruitment, operations, and start-up costs for a total of $16 million.

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Island research soothing pain across the country

They say necessity is the mother of invention.

Seeing someone he loves suffer with chronic nerve pain that wasn’t responding to oral pain medication led Dr. Joseph Gabriele to invent Canada’s best selling topical pain relieving cream.

With a PHD in molecular pharmacology, Gabriele wanted to find a way to ease his wife’s suffering after a sarcoma between her eyes left her facial nerves jumping.

Dr. Gabriele developed a groundbreaking delivery technology called delivra™ that powers a fast-acting, deep penetrating topical cream; one that provided his wife with the pain relief and comfort she needed.

The Burlington, Ont. Company, born in 2007, now sells $4.5 million worth of products in 6,000 Canadian stores. They sell four products, for varicose veins, pain relief, nerve pain and healing cream for cuts and burns, and have two more – for athletic muscle pain and osteoarthritis joint pain – in clinical trials.

The National Research Council, through a natural products and marine biology program in Prince Edward Island, offered the delivra™  team a laboratory within their facility.
 
Montreal native David Baronowski moved to Prince Edward Island in 2013 to lead the six-person research and development team at the University of Prince Edward Island. The team is busy finding ways to make the successful products even better and to introduce new natural health products.
 
Delivra scientists want to work with small to large biotechnology companies across the globe.  For example, a company that develops medicine for stomach illness may look to them to develop topical applications.
 
They have accessed financial support from numerous federal and provincial programs including Innovation PEI and have partnered with BioFoodTech to help make this happen.

The PEI government has given us access to funds not available anywhere else in Canada

“The PEI government has given us access to funds not available anywhere else in Canada,” he said. “The substantial and numerous funding programs are extremely advantageous for small to medium enterprises like us.
 
Interestingly, for every one dollar the company puts in, loan programs provide three dollars for scientific research.
 
The company is also considering bringing manufacturing to the Island to continue to maintain a positive revenue stream and grow organically.
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The Delivra team on PEI, left to right, Frank Caluis, Jonathan Zuccolo, Azoy Kundu, Mathieu Poulin, Beth Buchanan and lead David Baronowski.
 
Baronowski’s team is diverse. In the lab, scientists hail from Bangladesh, Vancouver, Nigeria, Halifax and the Evangeline area of Prince Edward Island. Baronowski himself lives in Mt. Stewart with his wife and daughters. Not so fondly, he recalls the four hours of commuting he used to make. His wife is the assistant manager at Dalvay by the Sea beach resort and his daughters love the island way of living.

 “The beach is ten minutes from our house,” he said with a smile. “You can’t find this anywhere else.”

 
 
 
 
 
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Northeast PHP Conference

The Northeast PHP Conference is a community conference intended for networking and collaboration in the developer community.

PHP + UX + WEB = The best low-cost conference in North America!

Two days of talks on topics like: PHP, UX, Composer, Design, REST,Nodejs, Autoloading, Jenkins, Continuous Integration, Usability, HTML5, Architecture, CSS, API,Santize Data, Dependency Management, Javascript, Forms, Mobile, Agile, Laravel,Frameworks, SOA, Collaboration, HHVM, Legacy Code, Content Strategy, Refactoring, Facebook, Http, OSI, UDP, IP, TCP, Raml, RESTful, America, Civic Hacking, Wikipedia, Documentation, Networking, Process, Emails, Responsive, Cinema, Llvm, Hacklang, APIs, Theory, Design Thinking, Strategy, Testing, Selenium, Hack, Functional Testing,Variadics, Splat, Generators, Traits, Closures, PSR-0, PSR-4, Survival, Adventure, Teamwork, Leadership, Namespaces, Unit Testing, FIG, Surgery, DIY, Keynote, PHP The Right Way, Tools,Ad-hoc, Coding Standards, Strategies For Success, OOP, Soft Skills, Management, Code Quality, IOT, PHPUnit, XSS, Web Security, Security, Internet Of Things, Cachegrind, Profiling, Xdebug, Object Oriented, Layout, All Levels, Visual Identity, Brand, Data, Results, CSRF

History

It all started with a humble conversation between organizers of the Boston PHP, Atlantic Canada PHP, and Burlington, Vermont PHP user groups. Boston PHP was (and still is) the largest and most active PHP community in the world and had long dreamed of starting its own conference. After almost a year of planning and collaboration between organizers throughout the northeast region, this dream was finally realized with the inaugural Northeast PHP Conference in August of 2012.

Starting with no budget and no conference experience, the organizational team overcame many challenges to create an event on par with the big technology conferences. With the event space generously donated by Microsoft’s New England Research and Development (NERD) Center the NEPHP organizers were able to check many large ticket items off their list. Many other sponsors, too numerous to mention here, provided additional resources making it possible to keep the ticket price to an absurdly low price. Most profoundly, all the organizers or speakers not only volunteered their time, but also contributed their own expenses to participate in the conference.

PHP, WEB, and UX.

While grounded in PHP, the Northeast PHP Conference is not just about PHP. As the organizers know, most PHP developers are working on websites and applications, which means that they need more than just PHP skills to get ahead. The additional Web Technology and User Experience topics help these developers broaden their skill sets and expand their knowledge & experience.

The future points North

As the Northeast PHP team looks to the future there is a strong desire to take the event on the road, traveling throughout the northeast region. With many developers in the northeast region, and not many conferences serving these developers, Northeast PHP can help developers grow and learn, becoming confident and even sharing their own talks. Initially, the team plans to have satellite events in Prince Edward Island with additional locations to be considered in future years.

Non profit

We are entirely non-profit. All money will be used to pay for the conference itself, including food and other expenses required to run a conference of this size. Please show your support and help us create one of the best conferences in the northeast region.

Get involved

We value the participation of each member of the PHP community and want all attendees to have an enjoyable and fulfilling experience. The best way to do that is to get involved and move your ideas forward. Volunteer to join the Conference Planning board, contribute talk ideas, and tell your friends and co-workers!  This is YOUR community and YOUR community conference.

Thank you

We value the participation of each member of the PHP community and want all attendees to have an enjoyable and fulfilling experience.

Follow @NEPHP on Twitter for updates and don’t miss out on the Northeast PHP Conference 2016 in P.E.I., Canada!

Thank you for being a part of Northeast PHP!

Sensational Speaker Line-up

We’ve got all the rockstars from our industry in one place just for you! With talks ranging from starting to work in the industry to expanding your skill set as an experienced user; we have sessions for everyone!

NOTE: This line up of speakers is subject to change.

 
 [huge_it_portfolio id=”4″]
 
 
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New and emerging businesses receive Innovation PEI grants

May 24, 2016
For immediate release

Department of Economic Development and Tourism

Island companies will receive a total of $680,000 in grants from two provincial funds aimed at helping them take their products from concept to market.

“Government continues to focus on increasing exports, creating jobs, and growing our economy — and the best way to do this is by investing in Islanders,” Economic Development and Tourism Minister Heath MacDonald said. “These funds provided through Innovation PEI support our Throne Speech commitment to provide seed capital for start-up ventures, so that our Island entrepreneurs have the early support they need to turn their dreams into reality.”

This year Innovation PEI will support 14 businesses from across Prince Edward Island through these two funds. Eight companies will receive grants from the Pilot and Discovery Fund (22 applications were received) – which supports projects in their earliest stages. Six companies will receive grants from the Development and Commercialization Fund (20 applications were received), which is intended for projects that have moved beyond the pilot phase and are ready for full commercial production.

More than 100 projects have been supported through these two funds since they were created in 2008. By encouraging entrepreneurship, the programs help develop possibilities for new and emerging business sectors, which will provide the economic growth needed to create sustained prosperity for more Prince Edward Island families.

“Airbly is thrilled to have been successful in its application to the Development and Commercialization Fund,” said Chris VanHorn, president of Airbly Inc., an aircraft technology company. “This funding will allow us to grow our team and shorten our time to market.”

Providing funding support to entrepreneurs and small businesses furthers government’s commitment to increasing exports and economic growth. Prince Edward Island led Canada in the growth of international exports in 2014 and 2015 and is forecast to do the same in 2016 by Export Development Canada.

Information on the Pilot and Discovery Fund can be found at <ahref=”http: www.innovationpei.com=”” pdfund”=””>www.innovationpei.com/pdfund. For information on the Development and Commercialization Fund, please visit www.innovationpei.com/dcfund.

Backgrounder

The eight successful applicants to Innovation PEI’s Pilot and Discovery Fund are:

• Mighty Pebble Games

– Mighty Pebble Games is an independent video game studio located in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, which focuses on creating multiplayer games built around new innovative gameplay ideas. It will work on strengthening the development of the studio’s first game, Miner Meltdown, scheduled for release early 2017.

• Nautilus Biosciences Canada Inc.

– Nautilus Biosciences Canada Inc. aims to discover and develop bioactive agents from its in-house marine microbial library. Its discovery efforts are closely aligned with the needs of industry partners who are leaders in the pharmaceutical and personal care industries, and will work on the development of a novel platform for production of anti-inflammatory terpenes.

• Allan Equipment Manufacturing Ltd.

– Allan Equipment Manufacturing Ltd. is a PEI owned and operated designer and manufacturer of potato harvesting equipment, which has been serving the needs of its farm community by manufacturing a large variety of quality equipment for over 50 years. It will use its experience to develop and implement a cleaning module for potato harvesting equipment.

• Dr. Mark Fast – UPEI/AVC Pathology and Microbiology

– Under the direction of Dr. Mark Fast, Elanco researcher and associate professor at the Atlantic Veterinary College of UPEI, this project will develop a functional and diagnostic assay for assessing fish health and vaccine/treatment efficacy.

• Funky Finger Productions

– Funky Finger Productions is an independent development studio specializing in cutting edge applications and video games for iOS and Android devices. The company specializes in creating high quality applications for the industrial, educational, and entertainment sectors, such as its Pulse project; this two part project involves the development of the Pulse Engine, a proprietary biometric technology for Apple Watch and iOS developers as well as Adrenaline, a mobile gaming application designed to showcase the potential of the Pulse Engine.

• Gradpeek Inc.

– Gradpeek Inc. is developing an online HR ecruitment/screening tool designed to bring recent graduates (millennials) together with employers. The goal of the system is to reduce recruitment cycles and improve company/candidate fit. The platform will allow employers to target their audience by region, field of study, experience and work disposition. The next phase of developing this product will test and validate the Strength Survey tool.

• Skip the Waiting Room Inc.

– Skip the Waiting Room Inc. specializes in healthcare technology, offering full-featured walk in clinic management tools, provides clinic providers and clients with up-to-the-minute information about clinic capacity and online registration. Further to the success with its existing client base, Skip the Waiting Room will implement design changes to enable expansion to other provinces in Canada.

• R&M Welding Ltd.

– R & M Welding Ltd. specializes in manufacturing and repair services for the fishing and aquaculture industry, and is recognized as a successful rural enterprise by focusing on the needs of the aquaculture industry in Prince Edward Island and the Maritime region. It has identified a need for new technology to reduce labour costs and improve efficiency for ‘off-bottom’ oyster production.

The six successful applicants to Innovation PEI’s Development and Commercialization Fund are:

• Centre for Aquaculture Technologies Canada

– Center for Aquaculture Technologies Canada operates as a contract research organization primarily focused on aquaculture and more specifically focused on providing services in diagnostics and molecular biology, breeding and genetics, as well as contract research services including fish health and nutrition. Dr. Debbie Plouffe and her team will develop and validate challenge models for important fish pathogens in recirculation.

• BamText Corp.

– BamText Corp. is an information and communications technology start-up specializing in text messaging technology for mass communication and anonymous customer feedback. Built in response to the growing popularity of customer review websites, BamText enables customers to use their mobile devices as anonymous, instant comment cards and allows business owners and managers to provide immediate response. The BamText Scalability and Enterprise Software Project will grow product offerings and meet enterprise client demands.

• WorkLinks Inc.

– WorkLinks was launched as a first-class payroll processing solution for businesses with Canadian employees. Its payroll solution has the ability to handle statutory requirements in all 13 provinces and territories and is highly customizable to meet clients’ needs, with hosted workforce management products to help small and medium sized businesses streamline their entire pay process. The development and implementation of an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) component will provide “end-to-end” payroll solutions for its clients.

• Island Water Technologies Inc.

– Island Water Technologies Inc. is a PEI based wastewater technology company specializing in developing self-powered, self-operating treatment solutions. As part of their unique solution they have developed a bio-computer technology platform that allows for real-time communication with the active biology in a wastewater treatment system.

• King Ding Productions

– King Ding Productions principal, Alexandre Hanley, has expertise in food safety and the development, training, and implementation of food safety programs to clients around the world. He will use his expertise to develop a virtual library to catalogue best practices to help increase food safety.

• Airbly Inc.

– Airbly Inc. is a technology company with an aim to simplify aircraft ownership and make flying safer. With its innovative hardware product, the Canairy™ Cockpit Monitor, Airbly will improve the management of aircraft in the aerospace sector.

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Media Contact: Brad Chatfield

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Venture Capital Investment for Solar Powered Wastewater Treatment

By

Island Water Technologies Secures Venture Capital Seed Investment

Island Water Technologies (IWT), a wastewater technology company focused on developing renewably powered solutions for remote populations, has secured $250,000 in venture capital from Innovacorp.

The company will use the investment to commercialize its mobile solar-powered wastewater treatment solution – REGEN.

“Our demonstration projects over the last two years have been extremely successful, so we’re ready to get on customer sites by June 2016,” said IWT co-founder and CEO Patrick Kiely. “This capital will let us complete our upcoming system installations planned for Atlantic Canada and North Africa.”

REGEN: Solar Powered Wastewater Treatment

IWT’s REGEN technology has the lowest energy requirement for wastewater treatment in the industry and can be completely powered by renewable energy. The modular systems can be installed in remote locations where there is limited electricity and can be monitored remotely in real-time for ease of maintenance and compliance.

The company’s first target markets will be military bases, disaster relief operations, mining camps and off-grid communities.

With its head office in Montague, P.E.I., IWT’s research and development is taking place in partnership with Dalhousie University in Halifax and Truro. Last fall, the company graduated from Ecofuel, a start-up accelerator run by Cycle Capital, a Montreal-based clean technology fund.

“Wastewater treatment is critical in protecting people’s health and the environment from the potentially harmful effects of human sewage and industrial wastewater,” said Michael Dennis, investment manager at Innovacorp. “Global sales of equipment to treat wastewater are forecasted to surpass $53 billion USD by 2020, and IWT is developing unique and potentially disruptive technologies for this extensive market.”

In addition to REGEN, IWT has developed two other wastewater treatment products. ClearPod is a drop-in device for residential and commercial septic tanks that speeds up bio-treatment of domestic wastewater and restores performance of existing septic systems. Sentry is a sensor that uses microbes to monitor wastewater treatment systems in real-time and reports through the cloud on the status of biological processes and performance.

 

Contact Information:

Dr. Patrick Kiely, CEO
e-mail: pkiely@islandwatertech.com
phone: +1 819 5987153

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RANKED: The 37 hottest pre-IPO ad tech start-ups of 2016

 

The ad tech IPO market has dried up in the last 18 months. Public ad tech stocks have fallen 13% this year.

But the private ad tech market is still bustling. Plenty of ad tech companies are getting snapped up by larger firms, raising VC money (although, admittedly, some of the rounds aren’t as big as they used to be), or simply steadily growing their businesses quarter-on-quarter.Three of the companies on last year’s ad tech startup ranking have since been acquired. This ranking (and, yes, we were debating whether to lose the “pre-IPO” headline) looks at the hottest private ad tech companies right now. Our data comes from CrunchBase, LinkedIn, our own reporting, that of other business publications, and the advice of a handful of ad tech industry insiders. Our ranking takes into account: Revenues, headcount, venture funding, recent news, whispers, and reputation. Last year’s ranking was more weighted toward revenue, whereas this year’s ranking takes into account more metrics than revenue alone. (One company in the list is even pre-revenue!) 

37. Taykey: Backing from Eric Schmidt

37. Taykey: Backing from Eric Schmidt

Taykey

CEO: Amit Avner

Employees: 100+

Estimated revenues: $10 million, according to Forbes

Total funding to date: $32 million

Comment: Taykey made two senior hires recently: Yaron Waxman as its new VP of product (previously CPO at Showbox), and former Criteo marketer Jon Nevitt as its VP of marketing.

The company, which tracks trends for marketers among their desired audiences, has backing from big-name investors including Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, SoftBank Capital, and Sequioa Capital.

36. Sharethrough: Expanding into native video

36. Sharethrough: Expanding into native video

LinkedIn

CEO: Dan Greenberg

Employees: 170

Estimated revenues: We estimate between $30 million and $40 million net

Total funding to date: $28 million

Comments: Sharethrough is a San Francisco-based company that specializes in programmatic native advertising.

The company says it doubled the amount of video impressions served through its exchange in 2015. Sharethrough also launched a product called “video view ads,” which it describes as “the first autoplaying in-feed native video product for the open web.”

35. Accordant Media: Double-digit revenue growth

CEO: Art Muldoon

Employees: 70

Estimated revenues: We estimate between $50 million to $60 million net

Total funding to date: $1.4 million angel investment

Comment: Accordant is a media buying and optimization company for agencies and in-house brand marketers. The company has offices in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and it expanded into London last year.

Accordant claims it has achieved a 5-year compound annual growth rate of 65%. The company has appeared in the Inc 5000 rank of the fastest-growing companies two years in a row.

34. Kargo: Strong revenue growth for native ads

34. Kargo: Strong revenue growth for native ads

newyorkfestivals.com

CEO: Harry Kargman

Employees: 200

Estimate revenues: We are told least $100 million gross, but it’ll be less on a net revenue basis. We couldn’t get an accurate net revenue estimate.

Total funding to date: $0

Comment: Kargo’s publisher platform combines content with native brand advertising for mobile.

The company has worked with brands including Target and McDonald’s.

Kargo says it increased revenue in 2015 by 100% and is forecasting revenue growth of between 60% to 75% this year.

33. Innovid: Partnering with all the big names

33. Innovid: Partnering with all the big names

innovid

CEO: Zvika Netter

Employees: 200+

Estimated revenues: We estimate around $50 million net

Total funding to date: $65 million

Comments: The past 12 months have been busy for video marketing platform Innovid in terms of partnerships.

Highlights include partnering with Snapchat to provide advertisers with more detailed data about campaign deliver, offering interactive video capabilities on Instagram and Facebook, and partnering with Roku to power personalized, targeted, interactive video ads.

The company also raised a $27.5 million funding round from New Spring Capital, Sequoia Capital Israel, Genesis Partners, Cisco Ventures, and T-Venture.

32. PubMatic: Some internal restructuring but a renewed focus on premium publishers

CEO: Rajeev Goel

Employees: 400+

Revenue: We estimate north of $100 million

Total venture funding: $63 million

Comment: Deloitte ranked PubMatic as one of the fastest-growing companies in the US for the fourth consecutive year in 2015.

PubMatic links this to its 200% growth in mobile advertising in the first half of the year. Mobile now makes up 65% of the volume on PubMatic’s platform.

The company laid off 20% of its workforce in December as it refocused the business around the minority of its publishers that drive 90% of its revenue. 

31. Beeswax: Undercutting everyone else on price

31. Beeswax: Undercutting everyone else on price

Beeswax

CEO: Ari Paparo

Employees: 12

Estimated revenues: $3 million to $4 million (the company only launched a month ago)

Total funding to date: $2 million

Comment: Beeswax, which only officially launched in April this year, may only have tiny revenues compared to the other companies on our list but where this firm punches above its weight is its innovative offer.

Beeswax is as a “bidder-as-a-service” platform that allows advertisers to custom-build a cloud-based bidder, which undercuts other ad tech companies on price. Its fees start at $7,500 a month, a lot cheaper than the $1 million it would cost to build a bidder in-house.

30. Socialbakers: A new CEO and a solid base of customers

30. Socialbakers: A new CEO and a solid base of customers

Socialbakers

CEO: Robert Lang

Employees: 350

Estimated revenues: We estimate between $30 million and $50 million net

Total funding to date: $34 million

Comment: In September, Socialbakers’ long-time, respected young CEO and cofounder Jan Rezab handed over the reins to Robert Lang, who joined the company from France-based public ad tech firm Criteo. Rezab is now executive chairman.

Socialbakers, which is based in Prague, is valued somewhere north of $200 million and it customers include more than half of the global Fortune 500 companies.

29. xAd: A mobile location specialist with triple-digit revenue growth

29. xAd: A mobile location specialist with triple-digit revenue growth

xAd

CEO: Dipanshu Sharma

Employees: 364

Estimated revenue: xAd said in May it had achieved a $250 million revenue run-rate. (That’s gross revenue, though. We couldn’t get closer to an accurate net figure.)

Total funding to date: $74 million

Comment: EMarketer’s Mobile Stat Pack 2016 report listed xAd as the “largest player in mobile location marketing” in terms of mobile and display revenue.  The company says it generated 100% revenue growth year over year in May.

The company also recently appointed former Google and Yahoo exec Shashi Seth as its chief product officer.

28. LiveIntent: Turning email into ad tech

CEO: Matt Keiser

Employees: 195

Estimated revenues: We estimate between $30 million to $50 million net

Total funding to date: $55 million

Comment: LiveIntent is an email advertising company that reaches 130 million people a month. It personalizes the ads inside email newsletters to different audiences.

Last year, the company featured in Crain’s 50 fastest-growing companies list for the second year in a row.

In June 2015, the company closed a $32.5 million Series D funding round.

27. Captify: A young British team with huge promise

27. Captify: A young British team with huge promise

Captify

CEO: Dominic Joseph

Employees: 120

Estimated revenues: We estimate between $40 million and $50 million net

Total funding to date: $14.5 million

Comment: London-based Captify raised £8 million ($11.6 million) in funding in June last year, which the company said would enable it to “consolidate [its] position as the European market leader in search data-driven advertising and analytics.”

Captify says its search data network covers 550 million unique users globally. Its clients include Microsoft, British Airways, Barclays, Sky, American Express, and BMW.

The company, founded in 2011, is young in many respects: Cofounders Dominic Joseph and Adam Ludwin are aged 30 and 27.

26. Drawbridge: A highly-regarded CEO and branching out of ad tech-only

26. Drawbridge: A highly-regarded CEO and branching out of ad tech-only

Drawbridge

CEO: Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan

Employees: 130

Estimated revenues: We don’t have an accurate estimate on net revenues. The company said it achieved a $100 million annual revenue run-rate in Q4 2015, but this is a gross figure (and a run-rate).

Total funding to date: $45.5 million

Comment: In May, Drawbridge raised $25 million in Series C funding that it plans to use to “invest aggressively” in building out its “global graph” that helps it anonymously identify people as they switch between devices.

While the primary application of Drawbridge is within advertising, the company is also looking to expand into new areas such as website personalization and fraud detection.

The company’s CEO is unusual in ad tech, not only for being a woman, but for her background: She is a former planetary scientist and one of the instruments she helped design during her PhD is currently on the NASA New Horizons spacecraft mission to Pluto. 

25. Turn: A big focus on brands

25. Turn: A big focus on brands

Turn

CEO: Bruce Falck

Employees: 350+

Estimated revenue: We estimate between $100 million and $150 million

Total funding to date: $152.5 million.

Comment: Turn went through a big transition in 2015 and brought its new CEO, Falck, on board last September to help realign the business to focus on brand relationships.

Turn claims to be the only independent ad tech company that combines a DSP, DMP, and an analytics platform.

24. Kenshoo: One of the biggest buyers of Facebook and Google ads

24. Kenshoo: One of the biggest buyers of Facebook and Google ads

Kenshoo

CEO: Yoav Izhar-Prato

Employees: 500

Estimated revenues: We estimate between $100 million and $120 million net

Total venture funding: $49.7 million, according to CrunchBase.

Comment: Kenshoo is based in Tel-Aviv and is best-known for handling billions of dollars worth of search, local, and social media advertising spend.

The company is a Facebook Marketing Partner and in 2015 was granted initial access to the Instagram Ads API.

23. Sprinklr: Far more than just ad tech 

23. Sprinklr: Far more than just ad tech

Sprinklr

CEO: Ragy Thomas

Employees: 1,100

Estimated revenue: Forbes reported Sprinklr surpassed $100 million in annualized revenue last fall (without indicating gross/net), so we of course expect more than $100 million this year as an apples-to-apples comparison. We couldn’t get closer to a net estimate.

Total funding to date: $134 million

Comment: Sprinklr is an enterprise software platform that lets brands like Nike, McDonald’s, Microsoft, and JPMorgan Chase manage their organic and paid-for social media marketing in one place. 

In the past 12 months, the company has made a number of acquisitions: Social visualization platform Postano; location-specific text analytics software firm NewBrand; and audience segmentation platform Booshaka.

Last March, Thomas told the Wall Street Journal Sprinklr’s $1.17 billion valuation was a “very conservative multiple of our recurring annual revenue.”

22. RadiumOne: Back on track

CEO: Bill Lonergan

Employees: 340

Estimated revenue: The company said it was on track to achieve $200 million in revenue in 2015, although this is likely a gross revenue number. We were unable to estimate an accurate net revenue figure.

Total funding to date: $87.5 million

Comment: Last June, RadiumOne secured $54 million in Series C financing, which it said it planned to use in order to open up more officies across Asia-Pacific and Europe, expand its data and platform technology, and fund more sales and marketing hires.

The company says it achieved record growth and net profitability in 2015. It seems like RadiumOne is finally shaking off some of the negativity associated with the ousting of its former CEO and founder. 

21. Data Xu: Profitable and growing

21. Data Xu: Profitable and growing

DataXu

CEO: Mike Baker

Employees: 300+

Estimated revenues: The company told TechCrunch its revenues were $167.5 million in 2014, up from $100 million in 2013, without indicating net or gross. We were unable to get closer to a 2015 net revenue estimate.

Total funding to date: $65.8 million

Comment: DataXu (pronounced “data zoo”) is a marketing analytics platform that works with more than 700 brands around the world.

The company tells us it has seen topline revenue growth of more than 350% in the past three years and that it is profitable.

In January this year, British pay-TV provider Sky invested $10 million in the company

20. Sourcepoint: Backed by big-name ad tech stars, looking to solve the industry’s ad blocking woes

20. Sourcepoint: Backed by big-name ad tech stars, looking to solve the industry's ad blocking woes

Sourcepoint

CEO: Ben Barokas

Headcount: 23

Estimated revenue: Pre-revenue

Total funding to date: $10 million

Comment: Often referred to as an “ad blocker-blocker,” Sourcepoint is actually attempting to become the “Spotify for digital content,” offering publishers a toolkit to attempt to thwart the threat of ad blocking.

Sourcepoint’s investors are the “who’s who” of the ad tech community: Former Millennial Media CEO Michael Barrett, MediaMath CEO Joe Zawadski, Moat CEO Jonah Goodhart, and LiveIntent CEO Matt Keiser. Spark Capital, Foundry Group, Greycroft, and Accel Partners Europe, are also investors. 

19. PageFair: Bringing the discussion around ad blocking solutions into the mainstream 

19. PageFair: Bringing the discussion around ad blocking solutions into the mainstream

PageFair

CEO: Sean Blanchfield

Employees: 21

Estimated revenues: We estimate between $50 million and $100 million net

Total funding to date: $3.3 million

Comment: PageFair has helped move ad blocking up the global agenda this year, thanks to its report (published in partnership with Adobe), which estimated there are 198 million people using ad blockers worldwide.

As well as providing technology to help around 5,000 publishers establish the size of their ad blocking audience and find a way to serve non-intrusive ads to them, PageFair has also helped coordinate roundtables in the US and Europe between agencies, publishers, advertisers, ad blockers, browsers, and consumer groups to help address some of the issues ad blocking has raised.

18. WideOrbit: A programmatic TV pioneer 

18. WideOrbit: A programmatic TV pioneer

WideOrbit

CEO:

Employees: 565

Estimated revenues: We estimate near $100 million net

Total funding to date: $35 million

Comment: In 2015, WideOrbit, which was primarily known as a traffic software company for TV broadcasters and cable networks, launched its programmatic TV product. 

The company claims no other programmatic TV platform matches WideOrbit’s scale: It can reach 80% of US households and 20 of the top 25 media markets. 

17. Applift: Big in gaming 

17. Applift: Big in gaming

©Max Threlfall Photo

CEO: Tim Koschella

Employees: 250

Estimated revenues: We estimate between $90 million and $100 million net

Total funding to date: $20 million

Comment: AppLift is a Berlin-based company that helps mobile app advertisers acquire and re-engage users. It works with the biggest players in mobile apps including King, Zynga, and Glu Mobile. 

AppLift says it marked 170% “profitable growth” in 2015. It also acquired Singapore-based mobile demand-side platform Bidstalk.

16. AdRoll 

CEO: Aaron Bell

Employees: 500+

Estimate revenues: We estimate between $140 million and $160 million net

Total funding to date: $89 million

Comment: AdRoll claims to be the most widely-adopted independent programmatic advertising platform, with more than 25,000 customers.

In the past year, the company has launched opt-in data co-operative AdRoll Prospecting, launched email retargeting service SendRoll, and the company expanded into Japan.

15. InMobi: Huge scale in mobile 

15. InMobi: Huge scale in mobile

InMobi

InMobi chief Naveen Tewari

CEO: Naveen Tewari

Employees: ~1,000

Estimated revenues: $400 million gross revenue in 2014 (the last time figures were published). We were unable to estimate an accurate net figure.

Total funding to date: $225.1 million

Comment: InMobi is an India-based mobile-only ad network that claims to reach more than 1.6 billion active users.

In 2015, InMobi launched a new product and service recommendation platform called Mipp, which the company says is helping transform mobile advertising into a discovery experience so users can be inspired to buy items on impulse.

14. Centro: Profitable and acquisitive 

14. Centro: Profitable and acquisitive

Centro

CEO: Shawn Riegsecker

Employees: 700

Estimated revenues: We estimate between $130 million and $150 million net.

Total funding to date: $52.5 million

Comment: Centro, which sells digital media management software, had a busy year. The company raised $30 million in Series B funding, led by Neuberger Berman Private Equity Funds. It also acquired GraphScience, an automated social ad-buying platform. 

The company did also layoff around 4% of its workforce in December, but it said these happened because it wants to remain profitable (Centro says it has been profitable in every year since 2001, except for 2008) and sustain its tech investments.

 13. Teads: Hot European potential acquisition target 

13. Teads: Hot European potential acquisition target

Teads

CEO: Bertrand Quesada

Employees: 450

Estimated revenues: We estimate more than $140 million net

Funding to date: $55 million

Comments: Teads is a video advertising specialist that claims to have invented the outstream video advertising format. The company says it grew revenue 50% year-on-year in 2015, with a big focus on programmatic revenue, which grew 300% in the period.

We also hear they’re a hot acquisition target, possibly from a public company.

12. Integral Ad Science: The industry go-to for ad verification 

CEO: Scott Knoll

Employees: 384

Estimated revenues: We estimate north of $100 million

Total funding to date: $56 million

Comment: Advertisers use Integral Ad Science to ensure they are forking out on ads that are in safe media environments with actual humans (rather than bots) viewing them.

The New York-based company was listed as the fast-growing company in North America on the Deloitte Technology 500, Crain’s Fast 50, Inc’s list of America’s fastest-growing private companies, and Forbes’ list of America’s most promising companies last year.

In addition, the company also raised $27 million in funding.

11. Quantcast: Solid revenue and trusted by the industry 

CEO: Konrad Feldman

Employees: 800

Estimated revenue: We estimate between $150 million and $200 million net

Total funding to date: $65.3 million, according to CrunchBase

Comment: In 2015, Quantcast launched its first programmatic brand solutions suite, which includes new products Search Powered Audiences and Audience Grid.

The company also hired the former CIO and CFO of DoubleClick Stephen Collins as its president and CFO and Google’s former director of people operations Sandra McDevitt as its VP of people and places.

10. IronSource: Huge scale on mobile and enviable revenues 

10. IronSource: Huge scale on mobile and enviable revenues

IronSource

CEO: Tomer Bar-Zeev

Employees: 735

Estimated revenues: We estimate $250 million to $350 million

Total funding to date: $105 million

Comments: IronSource is a Tel Aviv-based mobile ad tech company, offering user acquisition, conversion, monetization, analytics, and optimization tools.

In September last year, IronSource announced a merger with mobile ad firm Supersonic, which it says formed the “largest independent mobile monetization and marketing platform offering real scale.” IronSource claims to reach more than 800 million unique mobile users a month.

IronSource closed a $100 million round of funding in February last year, which was reported to value the company at $1 billion and set it up for going public — although that IPO has not yet materialized.

9. Outbrain: Expanding its offer beyond content recommendation 

9. Outbrain: Expanding its offer beyond content recommendation

Outbrain

CEO: Yaron Galai

Employees: 550+

Estimated revenue: We estimate around $500 million gross revenue (we have not seen a published net figure or been able to obtain an accurate one)

Total funding to date: $144 million

Comments: Outbrain is one of the biggest content recommendation platforms.

This year, the company acquired Los Angeles-based software firm Revee to help launch a new product that claims it will let publishers know exactly how much individual articles are generating in revenue, in real time. 

Outbrain also launched a chatbot that lets publishers launch apps on messaging platforms, with CNN signing up as its first partner.

8. Taboola: Huge reach and big partnership deals 

8. Taboola: Huge reach and big partnership deals

Taboola

CEO: Adam Singolda

Employees: 400+

Estimated revenues: We estimate around $500 million gross revenue (we have not seen a published net figure or been able to obtain one)

Total funding to date: Around $160 million

Comments: Taboola is transitioning from being a pureplay content recommendation service, to a platform company that provides publishers with tools to personalize pages to each reader and serve native ads.

The company signed big deals with the likes of AOL and MSN in the past 12 months and it raised a multi-million dollar funding round from China’s largest search engine, Baidu.

On the content recommendation front, Taboola says it now reaches 1 billion users a month across desktop and mobile.

Disclosure: Business Insider is a Taboola customer

7. Videology: Leading the charge to stamp out ad fraud 

7. Videology: Leading the charge to stamp out ad fraud

Scott Ferber

CEO: Scott Ferber

Employees: 350+

Estimated revenues: Last we heard (in 2014), it was nearing $300 million, although that is likely a gross revenue figure. We were unable to estimate an accurate net revenue figure.

Total funding to date: ~$130 million

Comment: This year, Videology has been making a great amount of noise about the work it is doing to stamp fraud out of the ad market — the company said it had blocked more than 28 billion fraudulent bot requests, in partnership with White Ops.

The company did also let go of around 8% of its workforce in January as it reorganized the business around its enterprise and TV deals, AdExchanger reported. In the last year it signed enterprise partnerships with the likes of Adobe, AT&T AdWorks, Sky, and Everyday Health.

6. Mediaocean: A near-unicorn valuation 

6. Mediaocean: A near-unicorn valuation

MediaOcean

CEO: Bill Wise

Employees: 800+

Estimated revenue: We estimate $200 million net

Total funding to date: $40.5 million

Comment: In June 2015, Mediaocean sold a majority stake of the business to Vista Equity Partners, in a deal that valued the firm at around $720 million. 

Highlights of the past year include acquiring BCC AdSystems in Australia to support its Asia Pacific business, partnering with Rubicon Project to offer a automated guranteed solution for its direct advertising business, and hiring industry veteran Ramsey McGrory as its CRO.

5. Moat: An industry favorite 

CEO: Jonah Goodhart

Employees: 150+

Estimated revenues: We estimate $50 million to $100 million

Total funding to date: $67.5 million

Comment: Moat provides third-party viewability, measurement, and analytics across platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Plus, it also has a close partnership with Nielsen, which is the company that provides TV ratings data in the US and is increasingly providing online video ratings too.

Away from advertising, Moat also provides content analytics across a number of major platforms.

When we asked ad tech insiders who should appear on our list, Moat’s name kept coming up.

4. The Trade Desk: A fast-growing DSP with an appetite for agencies 

4. The Trade Desk: A fast-growing DSP with an appetite for agencies

LinkedIn

CEO: Jeff Green

Employees: 175

Estimated revenues: We estimate between $100 million to $150 million net

Total funding to date: $252.5 million

Comment: AdExchanger claims The Trade Desk grew faster than “probably any other DSP in recent years,” thanks to its relentless focus on agencies. Inc Magazine pegs its three-year review growth rate at almost 7,000% and Forbes ranked The Trade Desk at #9 in its list of “America’s Most Promising Companies.”

In May this year, the company raised a $125 million credit facility led by Citibank.

3. OpenX: Trusted inventory 

3. OpenX: Trusted inventory

OpenX

CEO: Tim Cadogan

Employees: 460 

Estimated revenues: We estimate between $180 million to $200 million net

Total funding to date: $75 million

Comments: In 2015, OpenX said it generated $140 million in net revenue, up 40% year-on-year. The company says it was also profitable and marked 100% year-on-year mobile revenue growth.

Another highlight of last year was ranking top of Pixalate’s Global Seller Trust Index — which rates exchanges based on the quality of their ad inventory — for six consecutive months.

2. MediaMath: Courting attention from big companies

2. MediaMath: Courting attention from big companies

MediaMath

CEO: Joe Zawadski

Employees: 700+

Estimated revenues: We estimate more than $250 million net

Total funding to date: $200 million

Comment: MediaMath is a US-based demand-side platform, which launched in 2007. Last year, the company was named in the Deloitte Technology Fast500, which ranks tech firms based on their revenue growth.

MediaMath acquired Spree7, a German programmatic ad company in November last year.

In August the company appointed new execs and board members and was said to be “looking at all options, including going public and staying private,” AdAge reported. Business Insider hears a number of public companies have eyed up MediaMath for a potential acquisition, but it sounds as though the company wants to remain independent for now.

1. AppNexus: A huge company with WPP backing

1. AppNexus: A huge company with WPP backing

Twitter

CEO: Brian O’Kelley

Employees: 1,000+

Estimated revenues: We estimate more than $250 million net

Total funding to date: $250 million

Comments: Highlights of 2015 included the acquisitions of YieldEx and Real Media Latin America. AppNexus also became Microsoft’s programmatic ad platform in 57 markets around the world.

More recently, AppNexus announced it was partnering with video ad tech firms including Teads and StickyAds to create an “outstream open video marketplace” — selling video ads that appear and automatically play (without sound) on a page as a user scrolls through an article.

WPP often name-checks AppNexus in its earnings. The advertising holding company made a big investment in AppNexus in 2014.

 

Methodology: How this list is ranked

We looked at the following factors when we adjust our rankings and publish a new version of the list:

Revenue: This is one of the most important factors in our ranking. Companies with robust businesses have revenues they can talk about in dollars (not blind percentage “growth” claims). Companies that are modest about their revenues are usually modest for good reason.

We tried as hard as possible to obtain net revenue estimates. We are not auditors and we don’t have access to the companies’ accounts, so we have had to rely on our own reporting, that of other publications, estimates from industry experts, and figures given by the companies themselves. This ranking shouldn’t be looked at as an exact science, but more a temperature check of how companies are performing.

Total employees: Companies tend to hire more people because they’re handling more business. Headcount is a good proxy for growth — although having too many employees can drive down margins and veer companies away from their core focus.

Funding: Investors tend to want their money back. So companies that have taken a lot of investment funding are under greater pressure to IPO/exit than those that have not. VC investment is also an indicator (although not the indicator) of confidence in a company.

Reputation: It’s great that some companies like to grow quietly without the distraction of the media spotlight (some even requested we didn’t put them in the list) — unfortunately that means we’re less likely to know about them.

But, as previously mentioned, we also asked industry experts for their suggestions on which companies should feature, so we could get a good mixture of those companies with a good PR machine and those that are a little more off-the-radar.

Inevitably, we will miss a few companies that should have been on the list — but we hope this is a good reflection of some of the most exciting startups in this space.