I’m a huge fan of WordPress, a content management system that powers millions of blogs and Websites. While many people know about WordPress, a much smaller number would recognize its parent company, Automattic.

Automattic, which raised $29.5-million from a group of investors including the New York Times in 2008, has a relatively low profile, while WordPress is enjoying growing awareness around the world.

It’s an interesting dichotomy that struck me last night when Matt Mullenweg (the guy on the left in the photo), Automattic’s founder, appeared at a WordPress meet-up in Toronto.

When I bounced the idea off him, Mullenweg, whose low-key attitude makes him very Canadian, shrugged his shoulders. “We’re like Proctor & Gamble, which has 21 brands with more than $1-billion in sales,” he said.

While the analogy doesn’t quite work given P&G is a well-known brand, Mullenweg is suggesting Automattic is content to stay in the background while WordPress and, as important, the community that supports and evangelizes it captures the spotlight.

Automattic’s ability to stay under the radar is pretty remarkable when you consider the frothiness of the high-tech landscape these days. There is major acquisitions taking place and a series of high-profile IPOs, yet Automattic barely gets mentioned. Heck, if you search for Automattic using Google News, there’s little news.

Maybe that’s part of Automattic’s marketing strategy. Why do you need the spotlight when a massive army of WordPress developers and users are a well-oiled marketing machine.

In some respects, Automattic is a refreshing change from the hyperbole-filled high-tech landscape that’s continually searching for the next shiny, new thing. Perhaps reflecting Mullenweg’s humbleness, Automattic is just doing its thing, letting others bask in the headlines.

Sometimes, startups percolate over a long period of time. Sometimes, they emerge in a creative burst.

Case in point is Engagio, a service that helps people manage conversation happening on various social networks and comment services. Engagio addresses the problem of digital fragmentation in which activity is happening on various platforms – Facebook, Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn, Google+, et al.

For many people, keeping up with these conversations means visiting the different services, which can be time-consuming.

This is where Engagio comes into play with a GMail-like interface that aggregates this activity. It provides users with an inbox, as well as ways to discover more about the people engaging with you to drive more and better connections.

Engagio was created after William Mougayar bounced the idea off Fred Wilson, a partner with Union Square Ventures and a popular blogger. Wilson loved the idea, encouraged Mougayar to do it, and eight weeks later Engagio was launched.

$540K Seed Round Raised

Today, Engagio’s whirlwind journey took another big step forward with the close of a $540,000 seed round. The investors include Wilson, Rho Canada, Real Ventures, Bullpen Capital, Michael Yavonditte, Paul Martino and Extreme Ventures. Mougayar said the original financing goal was $300,000 but there was so much interest, the size of the deal climbed.

For Mougayar, an enthusiastic blog commenter, the inspiration for Engagio materialized to solve a problem he faced on a regular basis.

“You can’t form relationships over commenting,” he said. “There was nothing to systemize it, visualize it and see it. I put two and two together and said we need software to manage all those interactions and conversations on Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, etc. If you don’t have one place, you have to go all of the different places or depend on email notifications, which are hit and miss.”

As important, he said, is Engagio’s ability to identify the people with which you are interact. Engagio captures these people and puts them into a contact folder that becomes a relationship manager.

The seed round, he said, will be used hire more people and ramp up faster. A big chunk of the money will be spend to hire more people (development, marketing, UI and UX) and scale the infrastructure.

While Mougayar isn’t ready to talk about Engagio’s business model, he said it will depend on Engagio have lots of users. This will provide the company will options that will be revenue generation “clear, feasible and achievable”.

Who: Media Armor, which “empowers organizations to invest in mobile display advertising with the same confidence as online”

How much: $1.5-million from a group led by Geoff Judge of iNovia Capital and Ian Sigalow of Greycroft Partners. Other investors include Neu Venture Capital’s Jerry Neumann, Brian Cohen, Chairman of New York Angels, John Taysom, Laconia Ventures’ Jeffrey Silverman, Philip Grieshaber, Principal Scientist at Adobe, Mocospace CEO Justin Siegel, and Steve Tinlin.

The Quote: “Through our display, we enable Brands and Retailers to acquire new customers, keep existing ones loyal, and remarket to past site visitors.  All programs are run with a traditional test-and-control, isolating the view-based incremental-impact of our media.”

First, the good news about Canada’s venture capital landscape. In 2011, investment activity climbed to the highest level in four years ($1.5-billion), a 34% increase from 2010, although it is still significantly below the record activity ($2.1-billion) reached in 2007.

The bad news is there’s still not enough supply to meet rising demand, plagued by “continued weakness” when it comes to fund-raising.

The good news-bad news scenario was spelled out in the Canadian Venture Capital Association’s annual report. For those of us in the glass half-full camp, the increase in investment and the number of deal is cause for optimism.

As well, 2011 saw a spike in M&A activity with 34 deals, including two each by Google, Facebook, Zynga and Salesforce.com. And there was a flurry of incubators and accelerators established, including Extreme Startups last week.

Before anyone gets carried away, Canada’s venture capital landscape is a long, long way from being solid, let alone robust. There’s still not enough venture capital for seed, series A or major rounds. And don’t expect U.S. investors to pick up the slack.

In a press release, CVCA president Gregory Smith said there is concern about whether enough fund-raising can be dong to support the demand for investments. This situation was illustrated by the fact new commitments to Canadian VCs were flat last year at $1-billion.

“Canada has a historic opportunity to become an innovation leader,†Smith said, adding that “in order to act decisively on this opportunity, we must first overcome challenges to supplying VC funds that, in turn, supply entrepreneurs.â€

So what’s the solution? How can Canada’s venture capital community do a better job of supporting the startup community? There is not easy answer to a problem that has been around a long time and doesn’t look to be changing any time soon. It’s not going to be an easy fix from government or U.S. investors or institutional investors waking up to the idea of venture capital investing.

Perhaps the answer to the problem is this: success. If more startups and mature high-tech companies are acquired, that could (emphasis on “could”) encourage investors (angels, VCs and institutional) to get more involved. Success has a strange way of helping people to see the light or new opportunities that they otherwise would have dismissed or not seriously considered.

That said, success is a double-edged sword. Without enough financial support, it is hard for startups to have enough powder to become acquisition targets. If they’re not interesting targets, there’s no acquisitions and, likely, less interest from investors.

So which side of the fence do you sit on? Are you bull or a bear about Canada’s VC landscape?

For startups, attracting someone’s attention, getting them to check out their product and, finally, having them sign up can be a long but satisfying journey.

New users are celebrated because it illustrates a product has appeal, fills a need and, in some way, provides value. It explains why user growth is a key metric in determining a startup’s success.

But what happens after someone signs up for a service?

In many respects, the marketing shouldn’t stop. Instead, it has to keep going to make sure new users are embraced and convinced they have made the right decision. As well, a startup must make sure a new user is given reasons to stick around. In other words, if you invite someone into your house, you should be a good host.

So how do startups keep the loving going post-sign up?

It starts with something simple – a welcome email that thanks someone for climbing on the bandwagon, and provides them with a few ways to check out the different features. A month later, another email should be sent to ask how someone is using the service, and whether they have feedback or questions.

For new users, support is also key. This makes it important to have easy-to-find feedback widgets (I’m a particular fan of GrooveHQ and Olark), a user-friendly FAQ, mini-videos to highlight features, and responsive customer service. A good newsletter can also be a tool to maintain a regular relationship (avoiding the out of sight, out of mind syndrome) and provide useful information.

It takes a lot of work to attract new users, which makes it so important to show the love people who come on board. In other words, don’t take them for granted.

Welcome to edition #3 of my weekly look at what’s happening within the Canadian startup landscape, as well as interesting blog posts about startups.

I’ve got blog re-design in the works so considering turning this into a weekly newsletter. If you have thoughts or feedback, let me know. If you want me to add items to the round-up, leave a comment or send me an email.

- How Does a Startup Grow: a story by the Financial Post’s Quentin Casey putting the spotlight on six “Canadians with influence” within the high-tech sector:

- Uniiverse launches its “collaborative living” service: The Montreal/Toronto-based company attracted an extensive review by TechCrunch’s Rip Empson. Look for a story next week on Uniiverse in my Globe & Mail “Start” column.

- WattPad, which attracted $3.5-million in venture capital last September, reported that users spent more than a billion minutes on the social reading service in January.

- There are a growing number of startup accelerators emerging in Canada. Canadian Private Equity puts the spotlight on four: GrowLab, Extreme Startups, FounderFuel and Launch36.

- Shopcastr, which makes it easy for retailers to create an online store and for consumers to discover them, launched earlier this week. I’ve been working with them for several months, which included the decision to pivot after their original idea failed to gain much traction. Here’s my blog post, as well as a story by Mike Connell in the Toronto Standard.

- Just F*%king Sell: A passionate blog post by Graphic.ly CEO Micah Baldwin in which he contends the most important metric for a startup is “building something worth selling, and selling something worth building”.

- A couple of my other blog post this week included a look at the startup roadkill that’s will no doubt materialize, and a look at how generous startups should be with stock options given the many people Facebook turned into millionaires.

- In my Globe & Mail “Start” column, I took a look at Montreal-based Buyosphere, which offers a Q&A service for shoppers.