Going over the numbers for 2007, it looks like it was a record-setting year for startups in Waterloo Region.

We had six companies close seven-figure seed or early stage rounds (that is, pre-A-rounds) of funding in the year, which I don't think has happened before. And that's not including the $10 million in funding for RapidMind, another Waterloo Region startup.

Of those six deals, only one was announced in 2007, so even if you read every news release, every newspaper, every report from Thomson Financial, and every issue of the Ontario Securities Commission Bulletin, you wouldn't have come across any of the other five.