In Part I, we profile Acron Capability Engineering, Context Discovery, CRYPTOCard, Diablo Technologies and dna13

With 3D modelling, language acquisition technology, solid-state lighting, and public relations automation, this year's crop of Startups to Watch are an eclectic bunch, with only the technology thread holding them together.

Thinking back 10 years, it would be difficult to find an Ottawa startup not in the telecommunications or semiconductor sector.

And while some, such as Kleer Semiconductor and Group IV Semi, are staying true to Ottawa's Silicon Valley North heritage, there's no doubt that they've taken the technology to the next level.

Others, such as Protecode, seem to be developing a straightforward software offering, but peel back the layers and it's clear that the idea is brilliantly simple and the benefits self-evident.

A decade ago, Ottawa toiled under a pseudo Olympic banner of "faster, higher, stronger." Bigger pipes, quicker relays, and increased functionality were all the rage.

At the time technology was the innovation, rather than the tool to achieve it. But looking at the diversity of the products, the wide range of ideas, and the business cases brought to the table by this year's startups, it's evident that Ottawa's technology sector has taken a great leap forward.

ACRON CAPABILITY ENGINEERING

Year founded: 2004

Employees: 22

Venture capital to date: None

Product: Software

"The legacy training and simulation market is ripe for a disruptive influence; one that brings simulation learning to a much broader market and drives down the cost of simulators within traditional markets."

— CEO John Nicol

With the training and simulation market ripe for a disruptive change, Acron wants to lead the charge.

And its technology, which produces high quality three-dimensional models for simulations, is already pushing the envelope.

Released in November 2007, its integrated 3D modelling technology for graphics and simulators targets the modelling, simulation and gaming (MSG) industry. It is also the first 3D tool designed to work with Microsoft's recently launched visual-simulation platform, called ESP. The company also released a high-level architecture interface for ESP.

November was a busy month for the company, which also opened a new office in Gatineau to house its simulation lab and development staff, as well as a knowledge management centre in Fredericton.

The company hopes to build a network of offices across the country and bring desktop simulators to military bases across Canada. Police forces have also shown interest in the technology.

With its relative low cost, Acron's technology promises to ease pressure on budgets and increase the speed at which soldiers get essential training.

But until the armed forces change the way training is supplied and move to the easy-to-use platforms that connect seamlessly, there will be a market for the company's Info X product, which helps facilitate communication between the mishmash of simulators already in use.

So, far Acron has gotten its products to market without the help of any venture capital. With the response continuing to be positive, the company expects to increase its workforce by one third in the next eight to 12 months, to about 36 staff.

CONTEXT DISCOVERY

Year founded: 2006

Employees: 7

Venture capital to date: None

Product: Software

"It is all about time. Perfect for all busy people who desire instant access to the core information."

— CEO Henry Lewkowicz

Like many people, Context Discovery chief executive Henry Lewkowicz hates wasting time reading stuff he doesn't need to know.

After bringing order to the chaos that is the e-mail inbox with his previous startup, Model Technologies, Mr. Lewkowicz turned his attention to the billions of pages on the Internet.

"It all about context and focus. Our job is to pierce through the data on the Internet and instantly zoom in on the core information," he said. "When information is presented in context it becomes relevant and we don't suffer from information overload."

The company offers two products to help sift through digital clutter. The first is Context Organizer, an add-on that can be used with most popular browsers, Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint and MindManager.

The product, released last October, expands the capabilities of Model Technologies' flagship product, Context Portal. It used software to scan e-mails and identify key concepts, generate summaries of messages, attachments and websites, and automatically categorize incoming messages.

The new offering takes things a few steps further, creating summaries of almost any type of document – Microsoft Word and Powerpoint, Rich Text Format (RTF), Text, HTML, and Adobe PDF – with the click of a button on the dashboard.

It also automatically summarizes Internet search results, which eliminates the need

to click in order to see if the information

is relevant.

The second product, BlinkInfo, provides summaries of hyperlinks directly on web pages when the visitor drags their mouse over the link.

A box pops up with three or four sentences pulled from the destination website, which gives the reader a good idea of the content.

CRYPTOCARD

Year founded: 1989

Employees: 45

Venture capital to date: None

Product or service: Two-factor authentication

"CRYPTOCard is in a perfect position to take complete advantage of the ever increasing, and much needed, security regulation and compliance standards beginning to be enforced in organizations across all industries."

— CEO Neil Hollister

There's little doubt that savouring success will come easily for CRYPTOCard's employees.

Easily the oldest startup in this year's crop, CRYPTOCard toiled in obscurity and its two-factor authentication technology struggled to get traction due mostly to disinterest from its parent company. But a change in ownership in 2006 gave the 19-year-old outfit new life and the company's future now looks as secure as its customers' data.

CRYPTOCard's two-factor authentication technology replaces the old manually generated and relatively insecure static password by providing a new key every time a user logs in. Instead of being changed once every two or three months — and likely being found on a sticky note pasted to the monitor's frame, the technology ensures the password is a moving target that can't be caught.

"Static passwords no longer provide assurance that resources are protected from outside threats," said CEO Neil Hollister.

"CRYPTOCard offers an easy-to-use two-factor authentication solution that ensures all users within an organization are positively identified before given access to their applications, data and networks, and this allows organizations to be confident that they are not vulnerable to breaches that cause irreparable damage."

The company's pitch focuses on the low total cost of ownership, the high quality of its token technology, and the solution's flexibility that allows it to match almost any security policy.

Last year, it launched a North American partner program and signed a partnership deal with Michigan network security specialist JCS & Associates Inc. just before Christmas. The U.S. company will provide identification systems to customers across the continent.

DIABLO TECHNOLOGIES

Year founded: 2002

Employees: 60-plus

Venture capital to date: Not disclosed

Product: Semiconductors

For the second consecutive year, getting information out of Diablo Technologies proved challenging.

When contacted for the 2007 edition of Startups to Watch, the company would not respond to requests. A year later, the company was named by about half of the OBJ's ad hoc panel of technology experts, which included one of Diablo's investors, as one to watch, but the outfit remained tight-lipped about its progress.

When asked about its technology, Diablo's vice-president of marketing and business development, Cedric Paillard, offered that it's a "fabless semiconductor company with a mission to evolve and simplify high-speed serial interconnect to the point where it becomes the dominant technology for chip-to-chip communication in enterprise, industrial and consumer applications."

The company is led by former Nortel Networks' senior designer Riccardo Badalone, who played a key role in developing the company's advanced serializer/deserializer (SerDes) technologies for switching and framer applications.

Diablo specializes in deep sub-micron complementary metal-oxide semiconductor technology (CMOS), and highly integrated bridging and switching products for the server and storage industries. It also develops technology for high-performance data management applications.

"With a strong patented technology platform of low power high-speed mixed-signal intellectual property, the company builds highly competitive and profitable product portfolios that target large and growing addressable markets," Mr. Paillard added.

The company received investment from Celtic House in 2005 and funding from Montreal's GTI Capital, as well as seed and possibly follow-on funding from the Business Development Bank of Canada.

DNA13

Year founded: 2001

Employees: 35

Venture capital to date: $5 million

Product: Software

"The explosive growth of social and online media has become top priority and it has fallen completely on the shoulders of the PR departments and their inflexible tools. This underscores the large and untapped global market opportunity for our on-demand public relations and stakeholder management software."

– CEO Chris Johnson.

Founded in 2001, dna13 burst onto the Ottawa start-up scene in May with a $5-million venture capital deal with Celtic House Venture Partners and Propulsion Ventures.

Since then, the company has continued to expand its customer base and develop more features. It recently integrated the solution with Microsoft's Outlook e-mail program.

The company's communications management software allows its customers to know who's talking to whom and provides a place to record what was discussed.

Companies use the software to manage, monitor and measure their communications campaigns and control their corporate reputation. The product handles all the company's communications – campaign management, media list building, stakeholder networking, media monitoring and outreach analytics – from one easy-to-use portal that keeps all the relevant information in one place while also eliminating most of the grunt work.

The idea is to have the communications team save time searching and analyzing so they can spend more time "thinking, exploring and innovating."

"Dna13 is focused on helping public relations teams build and protect their brand equity - our service brings greater speed and accuracy to corporate communications management."

The company has attracted a number of media monitoring partners for its news content, which helped sign some well-recognized customers, such as Manulife Financial, Ernst & Young LLP, Nestle, and the City of Calgary.

By Jeff Pappone

Special to the OBJ