Canadian born, Payfirma is a young company headquartered right in the heart of Vancouver. Payfirma’s processing swiper plugs right into your iPhone, which makes it easy for us to sell drink tickets throughout the venue and at the door. If you are an on-the-go-business such as a photographer or designer, their swiper makes it easy for you to close deals on the spot. No credit card data is stored on their card swiper or the iPhone, guaranteeing to keep clients’ info safe, and allows receipts to be e-mailed.

If you’re coming to Launch @ GROW, you’ll be able check out their booth for more information.  We also encourage you to check out their website at Payfirma.com for more details and use them at your next event.

It’s the announcement you’ve all been waiting for! Our awesome judges have chosen the 15 Finalists to demo their startups at Launch @ GROW on August 17th.

Congratulations and good luck to all of the companies. Without further ado, here they are:

Launch @ GROW’s 15 Finalists:

Cargoh.com

• Cargoh.com is a curated marketplace for independent artists and designers. View Cargoh.com’s entry.

Food.ee

• Food.ee is the easiest way to order take out and delivery food online. View Food.ee’s entry.

Hipsell

• Hipsell is the easiest way to buy and sell things. View Hipsell’s entry.

Hoseanna – Serving Busy Women Everywhere

• Hoseanna.com is the new auto-ship service that delivers the monthly essentials women have to (but sometimes hate to) buy. View Hoseanna’s entry.

Jostle.me

• The Jostle™ SaaS platform is the modern way for employees to navigate their organization and be more effective contributors. View Jostle.me’s entry.

MentionMapp

• MentionMapp provides powerful new ways to understand the rapidly changing social network. Starting with Twitter, MentionMapp displays the unique characteristics of how messages map, through the social community. View MentionMapp’s entry.

Rocketr – Social Notetaking

• Rocketr is a cloud-synced, web and mobile application, designed for social notetaking across your public and private groups. View Rocketr’s entry.

Storypanda

• Storypanda is building an iPad publishing platform for kids and parent to co-create kids stories together. View Storypanda’s entry.

Summify

• Summify creates a periodic summary of the most relevant news stories, from all of your social networks, and delivers it by email and on the web. View Summify’s entry.

Tiipz - A Social Platform for Micro Research

• The Tiipz plaform gives businesses a brand new way to reach out and gain insights from customers by creating and sharing Micropinions. View Tiipz’ entry.

ToggleMe with Tradable Bits Platform

• With ToggleMe, you can create custom Facebook Pages and Places in minutes, and use simple Apps to engage your fans/customers. View ToggleMe’s entry.

Unbounce - DIY Landing Pages

• The Unbounce Landing Page Platform makes it easy to create, publish and A/B test targeted landing pages without having to rely on IT or web developers. View Unbounce’s entry.

Warranty Life – Manage all your purchases & warranties for free

• Warranty Life provides free instant online access to receipts, product registration, warranty claim information and even manuals in one central place. View Warranty Life’s entry.

Wishpond.com

• Wishpond is a shopping search engine that brings together all the products your local stores carry. View Wishpond’s entry.

ZapTap

• ZapTap makes product-specific information and customized incentives available when and where in-store purchasing decisions are made. View ZapTap’s entry.

Media Coverage
Techvibes will be highlighting each of these 15 startups in the coming weeks leading up to the event. They have already profiled Vancouver startup, Unbounce.

Tickets
Also, if you are still looking for tickets to the Launch @ GROW Reception, there are a few left  here on Eventbrite.

Feel free to leave some love for the finalists in the comments below!

Deadlines to apply for these amazing startup opportunities are coming up, and they’re coming up fast!

GrowLab: Vancouver Startup Accelerator

Deadline to Apply: June 15, 2011

GrowLab supports the world’s best entrepreneurs through seed funding, office space, mentorship & programming in Vancouver & San Francisco. GrowLab is now accepting applications for its Fall 2011 program, which begins August 15, 2011. Find out if you should apply. Five companies will be chosen for the first cohort.

GrowLab startups get access to:

• Up to $25,000 in seed funding
• Office space
• Four months of intensive programming
• Three months in Vancouver. One month in San Francisco

Deadline for Fall 2011 Program applications: June 15, 2011. Apply today!

Launch @ GROW Startup Competition

Deadline to Nominate Your Startup: June 17, 2011

Dealmaker Media and Launch Party Vancouver are joining forces to bring you Launch @ GROW, the opening reception for 2011 GROW Conference on August 17.

You could win the chance to be 1 of 15 companies to demo your startup at the Launch @ GROW reception, AND possibly qualify to be 1 of 4 companies, who get to pitch their startup live on stage during Day 2 of the GROW Conference, on August 18. The competition is open to startups across Canada.

You can nominate your startup by uploading a video, or a photo with a description of your company, on the competition site by June 17.  Don’t miss out on the June 17 deadline. Enter your startup today.

We will be highlighting entries throughout the competition. So, don’t wait until the last minute!

Good luck!

Nominate your Startup
All you have to do is create and upload a two-minute video describing your company to the Launch @ GROW Startup site no later than June 17 for consideration. Tell the world what makes your startup unique and why you should be one of 15 companies to demo at Launch @ Grow.

In order to be considered, you must:

• Have launched within the past 18 months or plan to launch at GROW
• Be a Canadian company
• Have a demo or live site for voters and judges to view
• Startups that have demoed previously at Launch Party in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton or Victoria can still enter Launch @ GROW

Voting Starts June 17
On June 17, the first round of voting will begin! At that time, you should rally your friends and local tech community to get out and vote because the top 25 startups with the highest ranking will move on to the Semi-Finals.

Semi-Finals
A panel of expert judges will review and rank the top 25 startups to determine the 15 companies to headline at Launch @ GROW.  From shiny boardrooms to quaint coffee shops, our judges hear all kinds of startup pitches everyday. Take this into consideration when creating your 2 minute startup video entry for the contest.

Danny Robinson, Martin Ertl and Maura Rodgers at Launch Party Vancouver 9

Pitch Live on Stage @ GROW
4 startups will be selected on August 17 to Pitch Live on Stage at the GROW Conference on August 18. You need to register to attend @growconf in order to be considered for the Final 4.

We will be telling the world about this Startup Competition and the Launch @ GROW event, so go enter now.

Follow the Launch Party Canada Team List for Updates.  Hashtag #LPGROW:

• Ken Bautista – @kenbautista
• Janis Behan – @janisbehan
• Saul Colt – @saulcolt
• Mack Flavelle – @mackflavelle
• Tina Hoang – @t1nah
• Satish Kanwar – @skanwar
• Christian MacClean  – @fourslice
• Danny Robinson – @dannyrobinson
• Maura Rodgers – @maurar
• Sonia Ryan  – @sonsryan
• Derek Shanahan – @dshanahan

Geotoko's Adarsh Pallian receiving Super-hero trophy

The people care where their food comes from and they have spoken. Foodtree takes home “People’s Choice”. Congrats Foodtree!

Foodtree's Anthony Nicalo and Derek Shanahan

A huge shout-out to all the startups, who were busy showing off their stuff all night. Stay tuned for details of our next Launch Party Vancouver event.

• tickets to event
• VIP service & canapes for your guests
• drink tickets a plenty
• VIP Table with Company Signage

And who knows, maybe even Santa will pay you a visit with his friendly helpers

Fore more details, contact Sonia Ryan at sonia (at) bootup (dot) ca by Friday, November 26th at 2pm.

The Bootup (BES) board is filled with entrepreneurs and investors, who are committed to helping the Vancouver startup ecosystem grow and thrive including Danny Robinson. Danny has acted as Chairman of the BES board since our very first meeting and has done an amazing job helping us stay true to our mission to inspire and support Canadian Internet entrepreneurs.

Over the past two years, Danny has invested in 10 new Internet companies (8 via Bootup Labs), co-founded BES and Launch Party Vancouver with me and mentored many other startups. I have known Danny a long time both professionally and personally. But anyone, who has seen Danny interact with startup founders can easily see that rolling up his sleeves and working with entrepreneurs is the thing he loves the most about his job. It’s truly inspiring to watch a founder(s) Danny has worked with take an idea, get traction and go on to build a great company.

As of today, Danny is leaving Bootup to become the new CEO of BCIC. Board member Boris Wertz of W Media Ventures has accepted the role as BES’ new Chairman. Like Danny, Boris is incredibly passionate about entrepreneurship and has invested a lot of his time and money into Vancouver’s startup ecosystem. We are really excited to have Boris step up as Chairman to build on what Danny has started. In addition, Jeff Magnusson has joined me as the interim COO at Bootup to help roll out our plan for a cool new space for Founders, which we will be sharing more details about very soon.

Thank you, Danny for sharing your knowledge and passion with us. We will miss you around here but are incredibly excited that you will be able to continue your work at BCIC. We think they are pretty darn lucky to have you and wish you all the best in your new role.

More good things to come in 2011!

Maura Rodgers, Danny Robinson, Dave Shea and Boris Wertz - Photo Credit: Raul Pacheco, #LPV5″

Photo Credit: Jeremy Lim

All of you have spoken and your votes went to Bootup Labs company Contractually.

Photo Credit: Jeremy Lim

Big shout out to the 9 demo companies who were hustling the entire evening and talking up the crowd. Great job! Thank you for making another Launch Party a fun and successful event. Stay tuned for our announcement of our next Launch Party Vancouver event.

We have some special guests lined up for LPV9 including:

• Members of The C100, a non-profit organization comprised of a select group of Canadians based primarily in Silicon Valley, including executives of leading technology companies, experienced startup entrepreneurs and venture capital investors.
• Techcrunch Founder, Michael Arrington just moved to Seattle and will be a startup Judge for the LPV9 Startup Competition.  He will also be in town for the big event. Vancouver, get ready to be Techcrunched!

Ticket Prices
Since LPV started we have quadrupled in size. To accommodate our growing tech community, we will be holding LPV9 at the Roundhouse in Yaletown. We are told that we can fit 500+ of our closest friends in there, so hopefully we will have enough room for all of us.  A Bigger venue + growing community = bigger costs. We have tried to keep the ticket prices low, still cover our costs and offer lots of value and fun at every event. Ticket prices include appies and a drink.

Cash Bar
Currently, there is no credit card service on site at the Roundhouse, so bring cash or feel free to pre-purchase drink tickets. We are looking into mobile payment options and securing a credit card service and will update this post if we can accept CC payments.

DJ Jeremy Lim
Jeremy wears many hats – marketer, photographer, musician and wicked DJ.  After the startup demos are done, you can rock out and dance to the music of DJ Lim.

Pixstar
Pixstar is a Vancouver photo booth company that has lots of great booth options for corporate events, weddings and Launch Parties!  Be sure to drop by the LPV9 Pixstar booth before you leave to take home a special memento from the evening.