Blog

Parksville’s Pixton Comics earns top spot at regional BCIC-New Ventures Competition

The creators of an online comic-making platform with an intuitive click-n-drag interface, has come out on top with the $30,000 grand prize in the 2^nd annual BCIC-New Ventures Competition: Regional. In total, $60,000 in cash prizes was awarded at a ceremony held in Kelowna last Thursday, February 23, 2012.

We told you about Pixton's online storytelling platform earlier this month.

"I came into the competition feeling hopeful but never in a million years did I imagine that we'd walk away with the first prize," said Clive Goodinson, Founder and Creator of Pixton. "It's a huge vote of confidence for what we are doing. Any entrepreneur knows you take a huge risk in pursuing your dreams but at the same time you know inside of you that it's something that is going to happen. And this just seals the deal."

The competition's $20,000 second-place and $10,000 third-place prizes went to Mazza Innovation Ltd. of Penticton and MediaCore of Victoria. Mazza is leading the development of pressurized low polarity water extraction technology that removes high-value phytochemicals from plants for use in products such as foods, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. MediaCore's cloud-based video learning platform helps educational institutions, training facilities and corporations provide education online.

This year's competition saw entries from 55 companies from all corners of our province, which were narrowed down to 20 finalists in November 2011. The winners are selected by the competition's expert panel of judges, who base their decisions on which companies have the most potential for success.

Several other tech startups had another reason to celebrate at the event as Accelerate Okanagan announced the 10 companies accepted into the new entrepreneurship@AO program, that supports and nurtures early-stage technology companies, from product concept to market entry. They include:

• Trajectory Design Automation
• Moteas
• Ducharme Service Management
• Niivv
• KeepMii
• UnityJDBC
• MathToons
• Cadent Computing Inc.
• MG Electronics
• Factor9 Sports

Beginning March 1, these companies will benefit from one-year free enrolment in Accelerate Okanagan's flagship Venture Acceleration Program, as well as access to free shared office space at Accelerate Okanagan's Innovation Centres in Kelowna and Penticton.

Congratulations to all companies!

Tagged as: Accelerate Okanagan, venture acceleration program, Pixton Comics Inc., Mazza Innovation, MediaCore Technologies Inc., entrepreneurship@AO

comments powered by Disqus