Canadian Fintech: Stripe Board Member Becomes Prime Minister of Canada 🧍
Santander approved to become a Canadian bank. Zolve entering Canada.
Good morning! Welcome back to the Canadian Fintech Newsletter, an industry roundup for founders, operators and investors.
Every Monday we break down the hottest topics in the industry in under 3 minutes.
Lots to cover this week! A new PM, a new bank, a new neo-bank…
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💰 Funding
Synctera, a BaaS platform that helps fintechs launch financial products raised USD $15m from Diagram & Fin Capital.
🤝 M&A
Hubly, a Vancouver based workflow platform for financial advisors (client onboarding, task tracking, etc.) was acquired by US competitor Docupace.
Redbrick, a Victoria based holdco that buys and builds software business, acquired NY based Paved, a platform that connects newsletter writers with advertisers.
Clio, a Vancouver based back office software for law firms (processing payments, financing, accounting, etc.) acquired UK competitor ShareDo.
ShareDo serves law firms a bit up market from Clio.
In 2024 Clio raised over a billion dollars at a $4b valuation - the largest in Canadian startup history.
This is Clio’s fifth and largest acquisition.
Deloitte acquired Pocketed, a Vancouver based marketplace to help businesses find grants and tax-credit programs.
Pocketed raised $1m in 2021 led by WUTIF Capital.
In 2024, Deloitte also acquired Flow, a Toronto based boutique advisory firm focused on grant and tax-credit funding.
Shopify acquired Vantage Discovery, a product searching tool for e-com shoppers.
A MESSAGE FROM THE CANADIAN FINANCE SUMMIT
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1,000 attendees
Executives from every Canadian bank
Founders from over 300 Canadian fintechs
🚀 Product
Zolve, a neo-bank focused on serving high income immigrants, is entering Canada this summer.
Exitify, Toronto based advisory group for selling small businesses launched. Think of this as investment banking for mom & pop shops.
Blossom, an app for retail investors to share stock tips, launched a marketing partnership with Nasdaq to promote their indexes.
Flinks, the Montreal based bank data aggregator integrated their document processing solution with Resistant AI, a European document fraud analysis tool.
BMO claimed that it will use quantum computing technology by the end of this year.
🧍People:
Victor Dodig, the long-time CEO of CIBC retired and was replaced by Harry Culham, who started his career as an intern at the bank.
A former board member of Stripe, became prime minister of Canada 😉
⚖️ Policy
Santander is officially a Canadian bank. 10 years after the Spanish bank acquired Carfinco, an Edmonton based automotive lender, the Minister of Finance approved its amalgamation. The entity will be called Santander Consumer Bank.
To give some perspective on how tough it is to enter the Canadian banking market - Santander is the 5th largest bank in Europe and their application still took 7 years.
A $10 cap on non-sufficient funds fees (NSFs) on consumer accounts are now in effect.
This was one of the final orders under former prime minister Trudeau.
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Have a great week! See ya 👋