Founded in 2010, Coral CEA focuses on firms developing communications-enabled applications and has helped finance 30 Ottawa companies in the past year and a half.
After starting as a fund-granting organization, Coral CEA evolved into a member-driven network that formed ecosystems around market segments such as health-care IT, finance and social media. Participating companies share their technology with others in the ecosystem, increasing the chances that it will be used for different applications in different sectors.
"The end goal is to establish these ecosystems more than anything else. If they are established, they will start to facilitate funding ... to these individual companies," says executive director Brian Forbes.
The non-profit organization was founded and is funded by the provincial government, with partners including Carleton University, Genband and IBM.
One local beneficiary is Cliniconex, a local health-care IT firm that developed an appointment notification system for private medical clinics. The company received $30,000 from Coral CEA last September to help it commercialize its product.
Cliniconex was also able to expand the use of its application to the financial sector through one of Coral CEA's strategic partners, network giant Genband.
Through that relationship, Genband was able to find another application for Cliniconex's technology in the finance sector, providing stock price notifications. Should the technology be integrated into Genband's platform, it will be sold as an app with Cliniconex receiving a portion of the profits.
Cliniconex CEO Anthony Mar says Coral CEA helped his firm branch into new sectors faster than the young company could have on its own.
"In an ecosystem, it's a lot easier to hear about opportunities and ideas, and work up those ideas because there are more people talking about the potential application," he says.
