As the year comes to a close, it’s always interesting to reflect back on the year that was and look forward to the next one. Personally, it was a huge year for me, with tons of activity at Year One Labs and then my move to GoInstant. I look back and see a whirlwind of activity, craziness and fun — I suspect many others feel the same.
So what were the big stories in 2011? What captured people’s imaginations in the Montreal tech and startup ecosystem?
I’ve looked back at 2011 to find some of the most popular and interesting stories. As a side note, up until this post there’s been a total of 733 posts (including jobs) in 2011. That’s an average of 61 per month.
Here are some of the most interesting stories – but I’d definitely like your feedback as well on major events, stories, etc. – personal or otherwise that you’ve experienced and seen in 2011.
- Startup Festival was by far the biggest event in 2011. And it was a huge success. Phil Telio (and team) are working on next year’s edition, I’m sure it’ll be fantastic. We did a bunch of stories on Startup Festival. The most popular one was when we announced the 12 startups that were chosen to pitch. The most popular stories on specific companies: Unhaggle and Hoot.me.
- FounderFuel was probably the second biggest tech story in Montreal this year. We covered the accelerator actively and look forward to 2012′s cohort(s).
- Beyond the Rack made headlines with a huge fundraising ($36 million)
- Startup Chile drew a lot of attention and some controversy when 3 Montreal startups announced they were joining the incubator. This story went beyond Montreal (appearing on Hacker News). Two of the posts about Startup Chile (here and here) were in the Top 10 trafficked posts on NextMontreal.
- Notman House remained an important topic in 2011, with more funding received and progress made.
- Real Ventures played a prominent role in Montreal’s startup ecosystem with lots of funding activity.
- Startup ecosystem chatter has to make the list, with a number of big posts on venture capital in Canada, startups in Canada, and the scene in Montreal specifically. The most popular of those posts was by Evan Prodromou on whether or not Montreal can and should become an open source startup hub (it was easily in our Top 10).
- Let’s not forget the startups! We profiled a ton of startups this year. Based on page views, here were the most popular posts: Tribair, Tuango, Couch Gamers, Empire Avenue, Pressbooks and 14 Blocks.
Although we don’t cover a lot of Life Sciences news, we did see one post spark real interest: Green Chemistry breakthrough named one of top discoveries of 2010.
So there you have it — some of the most popular and interesting stories in 2011. What do you think?
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