TiEQuest 2010 Winner

The announcement of TiEQuest 2010 winners at TiEQuest Gala Awards Ceremony on April 15th 2010 culminates another successful year of TiEQuest business venture competition. Registration for TiEQuest 2011 will begin sometime in November 2010.

(Toronto, April 16, 2010) - An upstart Toronto company has emerged as the finalist of TiEQuest, a business venture competition organized annually by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE). Verold Inc, a company commercializing software that reduces the time to create ready-to-animate 3D content for games, web-content, AR/VR and films, were declared the winners of the 2010 TiEQuest competition at the Toronto Board of Trade on April 15. The Canadian start-up, with an R&D lab at one of the top German Computer Vision universities, has achieved the process through a non-liner content production work-flow that automates or partially automates many of the tedious labor-intensive processes involved in producing 3D content.

L to R. Suren Dutia CEO TiEGlobal, Jad Yaghi Verold Inc.(Winner), Suresh Madan President TiEToronto and Mathew Sloly Verold Inc. (Winner) More Photos>>

“Thank you TiEQuest, the judges and all those who helped us achieve this success. Our mission is to make it easy, quick and inexpensive to create 3D content for media consumption, by both professionals and amateurs, and in the long term, to provide them with a means to create their own virtual and augmented reality worlds and games,” said Jad Yaghi and Mathew Sloly of Verold Inc at the TiEQuest annual awards gala on Thursday. "The best thing of TiEQuest was meeting a lot of judges who were experts in various industries. Just being connected to these very well connected individuals was a big boost."

The company will receive $50,000 in cash as well as $31,000 in kind that includes advisory services, market intelligence services, legal services as well as consultation relating to tax incentives.

“TiE Toronto will also pay expenses to Verold Inc. to attend TiECon to be held in Silicon Valley on May 14-15, 2010. This event is the largest entrepreneurial event in the world and is attended by around 4000 entrepreneurs and investors," said Suresh Madan, president of TiE Toronto.

The second place winner was Attodyne Inc., a clean tech company commercializing industrial class lasers for use in micromachining, solar panel processing and flat panel display manufacturing applications while the third place was awarded to Shiny Ads an advertising technology company focused on helping online publishers maximize revenue through a self-serve advertising platform.

Out of a total of 200 contestants, six organizations made it to the finals and included LifeLike BioTissue that creates life-like skin, veins/aortas, urethras, bowels tissues for use in surgical training and suturing; Pari Beauty that offers unique anti-aging cosmetics and advanced skincare products at exceptional pricing based on extensive scientific and R&D background; and Profound Medical, commercializing a unique, minimally-invasive approach for the treatment of prostate cancer.

“Contestants for the business competition included existing and emerging entrepreneurs, patent holders and/or applicants, university students. Competing in TiEQuest 2010 are 19 PhDs, 35 MBAs, 15 engineers, 3 lawyers, 3 doctors, 49 students and a number of other professionals. Entrepreneurs this year come from a wide variety of industries with 23 percent of the ventures from information technology, 22 percent from healthcare, 16 percent from clean tech and 7 percent from lifestyle,” said Madan

The high end event included Indian Consul General Preeti Saran, Ontario Minister Harinder Takhar and keynote speaker David Kassie, Chairman and CEO of Genuity Capital Management and a host of other high profile bankers, investors, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.

“The annual business venture competition encourages entrepreneurship and engages entrepreneurial talent. Through TiEQuest, over $150,000 has been awarded in prizes to the winners. We have also given prizes for Best Intellectual Property, Best Clean Tech Venture Prize, Best Medical Assisted Technology Venture and New Entrepreneur Prize to the best student team,” said Madan.

“Our 2010 finalists represent top teams in diversified industries. They were chosen from among 200 entrepreneurs who participated in the competition and sequentially submitted project profile, elevator pitch, written business plan and presentation,” says Madan, president of TiE Toronto, a global not-for-profit network of entrepreneurs and professionals dedicated to the advancement of entrepreneurship. TiE was founded in 1992 in Silicon Valley and today has over 16,000 members across 55 chapters in 15 countries.

TiEQuest 2010 finalists

Attodyne was founded to commercialize two technical breakthroughs:

• Development of low-cost high-performance industrial class picoseconds laser
• Development of a new metal deposition technology for TFT panel repair.

Attodyne is focused on becoming the preferred laser provider to OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) and system integrators of high value and high margin ultrafast lasers for use in micromachining, solar panel processing and flat panel display manufacturing applications. Attodyne offers ‘turn-key’ laser systems that resolve the cost, size and reliability constraints. Attodyne’s lasers enable customers to exploit the advantages of Cold Ablation with a simple, effective tool.

LifeLike BioTissue Inc. was incorporated to manufacture and market its proprietary and patent-pending technologies into anatomically realistic life-life tissues (presently consisting of veins, skin, aortas, coronary arteries and heart valves) to medical schools, nursing schools, veterinarian schools, teaching hospitals and medical device companies all over the world. The products feel like real human tissues, are realistic, have the same mechanical properties, and are non-toxic, non-latex, inexpensive and easy to dispose of. LifeLike BioTissue believes that offering accurate and realistic surgical simulations for medical trainees to practice on before operating on live patients will significantly improve skills, accuracy and speed, while also considerably lowering the risk of mistakes, adverse patient consequences, malpractice litigation and the cost of expensive operating time. The Company’s vision is reproduce as many life-like soft tissues and organ phantoms as possible, to dramatically improve student’s surgical, suturing and anastomosis skills, and ultimately, to dramatically improve the quality and safety of patient care worldwide at a reduced cost.

Pari Beauty offers a unique prestige anti-aging cosmetics and advanced skincare line of products at exceptional pricing based on extensive scientific and R&D background. The Pari Beauty management team is comprised of industry veterans with over 50 years of combined experience.

Pari Beauty cosmetics are performance formulas across all beauty categories: eyes, face and lips. We believe that beauty starts with healthy skin and have specifically formulated and designed our skin care line to serve as the perfect complement to achieving beautiful makeup. Our skin care products have been developed with our scientific knowledge and understanding that has resulted in technologically advanced formulas and unique combinations of active ingredients to deliver performance and results. Our skin care line works from a preventative and maintenance standpoint to delay the onset of wrinkles and premature aging while keeping skin healthy and radiant. In addition to superior formulas, we are committed to offering our products at an irresistible value. Pari Beauty is a unique brand offering the quality and performance of prestige beauty brands but at pricing that is truly exceptional and accessible to everyone. Makeup artists, consumers, and beauty experts are praising and excited about Pari Beauty. Pari refers to a heavenly beautiful woman. Pari Beauty represents the heavenly beauty that exists in all women of all cultures and backgrounds.

Prostate Cancer affects >250,000 men each year in North America alone. Worryingly, many of those treated with existing surgeries subsequently suffer debilitating side-effects of impotence and incontinence.

Profound Medical Inc. (PMI) is commercialising a truly unique, minimally-invasive approach for the treatment of prostate cancer, combining the already proven clinical efficacy of ultrasound thermal therapy with the unparalleled imaging capabilities of MRI. Our prototype has seamlessly integrated these two technologies into a system that could provide an unmatched level of speed, precision and accuracy in the treatment of the whole prostate, or targeted regions of the prostate. In just 18 months since foundation, the company has advanced from research prototype to a clinical system, has agreed a clinical plan with regulatory bodies, and is now finalising partnering agreements with a major MRI vendor and several notable healthcare institutions to start clinical trials.

Shiny Ads is an advertising technology company focused on helping online publishers maximize revenue from advertisers of all sizes. Our Self-Serve Advertising platform allows publishers to control the ad purchase process by directly offering an ad purchase system to their advertisers. It allows small and local (long-tail) advertisers to quickly and easily purchase advertising without the need of special knowledge of industry terminology, graphic designers, or a large budget. Through our patent-pending automated advertising management back-end process, payment is reconciled, banners are inserted into the publisher's ad server, advertiser's campaigns are monitored, and publishers are paid nightly. Typically online publishers ignore small and local advertisers as it costs more to service their needs than the revenue they generate. Long-tail advertisers are accustomed to quick-and-easy advertising options and only have a small budget to work with. The team behind Shiny Ads understood this dilemma having worked both in the online publishing and online advertising and marketing worlds.

Verold Inc. is a Canadian startup, with an R&D lab at one of the top German Computer Vision universities, that is in the process of commercializing a set of software tools and processes that reduce the time to create ready-to-animate 3D content for media consumption, such as games, web-content, Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) worlds and film, by up to 80%. This is achieved through a non-liner content production work-flow that automates or partially automates many of the tedious labor-intensive processes involved in producing 3D content.

Verold’s mission is to make it easy, quick and inexpensive to create 3D content formedia consumption, by both professionals and amateurs, and in the long term, toprovide them with a means to create their own virtual and augmented realityworlds and games.