MaRS Software Ventures – Who’s Raising?
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The following companies in the MaRS Enterprise and Fintech network are looking for financing in Fall 2023. If you would like to receive more information about a venture for the purpose of investing, feel free to contact the companies directly via the intro link below.
Note: MaRS is a non-profit entity and does not take fees or equity from any capital raised by the companies in our venture network.
Admission Overseas
Admission Overseas, through its SAAS and AI technology called AdmitOffer, is revolutionizing student admissions. With an official MVP launch in March 2020 and impressive growth statistics, Admission Overseas is making significant strides in the international student recruitment market. It has engaged with more than 300 universities and contracts, and has built a network of over 1,000 recruitment agents (B2B) on its platform. With a global workforce of more than 45 employees, Admission Overseas has successfully enrolled over 5,000 students, experiencing 100 percent YoY growth.
🏢 Sector: Enterprise/Software
📈 Round: Seed
💰 Amount: CAD$2 million
📝 Use: The funds will be primarily allocated to research and development, AI product development, market expansion, business development, and solidifying product-market fit. With a data-driven growth strategy, the company aims to acquire 50,000 students, generate $150 million in revenue, and continue reshaping the future of international student recruitment.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Balance
Balance is a prominent player in the fintech industry, recognized as Canada’s oldest and largest digital asset custodian. The company currently holds custody of more than $1.1 billion in assets from family offices, private funds, ultra-high-net-worth individuals, and other ecosystem participants. Recently, Balance has successfully renewed its SOC 2 certification, completed an independent KYC/AML compliance regime review, and is currently undergoing financial statement audits — critical steps toward incorporating a provincial trust in Alberta.
🏢 Sector: Fintech
📈 Round: Series A
💰 Amount: CAD$4 million
📝 Use: $3 million will be allocated as regulatory capital, facilitating the incorporation and registration of a special purpose non-deposit taking trust in Alberta. The remaining $1 million will be designated as working capital, providing financial support for Balance’s day-to-day operations and fueling its growth in the fintech industry.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
CAE Tech Limited
CAE Tech Limited offers “Infinitive,” a distinctive B2B2C SaaS configurator-to-production platform. This platform allows customers to self-service, selecting complex modular or configurable products through an intuitive 3D configurator, and securely place orders in e-commerce. Notably, the manufacturer can produce the product using only the data from Infinitive, streamlining the production process. Infinitive has already started generating revenue with initial subscribers from the IoT electronics and healthcare industries. The platform shows promising potential with prospects in a wide range of industries.
🏢 Sector: Software
📈 Round: Pre-seed
💰 Amount: CAD $340,000
📝 Use: Pre-seed funding will be used strategically to further develop and enhance the Infinitive platform. Funds will support product improvements, expanding its features and capabilities, and strengthening its market presence. Additionally, the investment will help CAE Tech Limited explore new industry opportunities and drive customer acquisition efforts.
Women founder(s)
Capita
Capita builds the SaaS to launch and deploy Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) for angel investors, syndicates, funds, end-to-end automated legal and tax filing — fast and easy. The founding team consists of corporate lawyers and a full-stack software engineer. Capita has automated compliance, reducing the cost and time to launch SPVs by as much as 5x and 15x, respectively. Capita has a healthy cash runway. Its pre-seed was led by Hyperplane VC, with participation from Fresh Founders, Diagram Capital, and angels from Canada, the U.S and Israel.
🏢 Sector: Software
📈 Round: Pre-seed
💰 Amount: CAD $50,000
📝 Use: Capita aims to expand marketing efforts since its launch, attracting over 10 syndicates and more than five funds seeking a simple and fast SPV product in Canada. Capita was chosen to service a deal to invest in a pro sports team, a 9-figure financing transaction.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Coterie
Coterie’s mission is to improve the longevity of women by fostering strong social connections, starting with sport. The company addresses the loneliness problem for women by leveraging AI and machine learning to enable personalized and unique connections with like-minded women. With an impressive average monthly user growth of 18 percent and $0 customer acquisition cost (CAC), Coterie is witnessing organic growth in its platform. Recently, the company launched its paid tier, which marks a significant development milestone. Notably, Coterie has secured investments from executives at prominent companies such as Affirm, Shopify, Borrowell, Ontario Teachers Pension, Lululemon, and more.
🏢 Sector: Health/Software
📈 Round: Pre-seed
💰 Amount: CAD $600,000
📝 Use: Pre-seed funding of $600,000 will be strategically deployed to drive Coterie’s growth and achieve its target of $2 million Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). A significant portion of the funds will be allocated to make two strategic hires: a machine learning (ML) developer and a director of marketing, empowering the company to execute effectively against its financial goals. Additionally, Coterie will dedicate 10 percent of the raised funds towards guerrilla marketing initiatives, further expanding its user base and solidifying its position as a transformative platform for fostering social connections among women.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Women founder(s)
Cya
Cya Live is a platform that provides a unique experiential space for collaboration, engagement, and transactions, allowing people to watch videos and shop together with friends and influencers. Cya Live’s cutting-edge technology enables real-time interaction with live content, apps, and other users through video, audio, text, and controllers. The platform has engaged users for over 5 million hours and generated over $700,000 in revenue. Notable customers include Paramount Pictures, Sky, 20th Century Fox, iHeart Media, Formula-E, and more. The current pipeline is expected to generate $6 million.
🏢 Sector: Software
📈 Round: Seed
💰 Amount: CAD$500,000
📝 Use: Cya Live plans to allocate the seed funding as follows: 40 percent for product development, 20 percent for marketing, 16 percent for sales team expansion, 12 percent for operational expenses, 8 percent for research and development, and 4 percent for contingency. This strategic distribution of funds aims to enhance product offerings, reach new audiences through marketing efforts, and expand the sales team to foster growth and maximize market potential.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Countable
Countable is a Toronto-based fintech that makes engagements simpler for small to medium-sized accounting firms. Countable aims to enable accountants to automate functions, such as trial balances, populating lead sheets, and generating financial statements. Their mission is to eliminate the need for spreadsheets for highly complex yet procedural work.
In 2023, Countable partnered with Xero and Sage to have a joint offering for accountants, and 30% of their revenue comes from first month sign-ups after the partnership launch. Countable has a current monthly revenue of $10,000 -12,000 and 250+ firms (1,000 users) as customers, with signed $1.5M ARR (TTM). The management team has a proven track record in accounting and as a startup operator. Their customers have experienced a 50% faster file preparation time, resulting in $1.2M in savings for an average 25-user firm, with the potential to reach 90% with AI and ML.
🏢 Sector: Software/Fintech
📈 Round: Seed
💰 Amount: CAD$2.5million
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Divergence Neuro
Divergence uses advanced neurotech and AI to improve outcomes of therapy and neuro health. The platform is a service for mental health care providers working with clients afflicted with addiction, depression, PTSD, anxiety and autism spectrum disorder. Divergence makes a user-friendly, portable and insightful service that measures the outcome of mental health care with the help of advanced EEG analytics and predictive biomarker technologies.
🏢 Sector: Software/Health
📈 Round: Seed
💰 Amount: CAD$500,000
📝 Use: Marketing and sales to improve sales and adoption; R&D to deliver new features and products; customer support to keep up with growing demand.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Ecosystem Informatics
Ecosystem Informatics aims to provide the tools to change the air quality monitoring and management space. It offers a combined hardware and SaaS solution that its customers can use to measure pollutants in a hyperlocal, scalable way. Ecosystem Informatics has recently closed two deals valuing in the low six-figures for a multi-year project with a city in Estonia, and with a mine in the United States. It has completed gen. 1.5 of its hardware, and is pushing towards 2.0.
🏢 Sector: Cleantech/Software
📈 Round: Seed
💰 Amount: CAD$2 million
📝 Use: To use the funding to complete R&D work on version 2.0 of the hardware, continued improvements to the web-based dashboard, and for a full-scale commercial push to meet anticipated demand.
🏠 Location: Milton, ON
Women founder(s)
Expancio
Expancio, a harmonized retail solution provider, helps retail and franchise businesses to engage local and online shoppers to boost sales. Its SaaS platform helps businesses build customer-engaging eCommerce applications and sales funnels. Expancio’s model is subscription plus a gross merchandise value transaction fee. Expancio currently has over 300 paid business accounts, over $28,000 of monthly recurring revenue and less than 0.4 percent churn rate per month. The company is currently raising a $1 million seed round for growing business in major cities in the U.S. and Canada.
🏢 Sector: Enterprise/Software
📈 Round: Seed
💰 Amount: CAD$1 million
📝 Use: Growing business in major cities in the United States and Canada, Expancio is poised to make significant strides in the enterprise and software sector, reshaping the landscape of retail and franchise eCommerce.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Foqus Technologies
Foqus is building a SaaS platform that can reduce long MRI scans (approximately 60 minutes) to less than five minutes, without sacrificing quality. Foqus’s software integrates with existing MRI scanners. It leverages proprietary quantum technologies and machine-learning algorithms to enhance medical imaging. Foqus has two patents. The company is doing a pilot for a hospital in Toronto and is in the process of applying for FDA approval for the software.
🏢 Sector: Software/Health
📈 Round: Seed
💰 Amount: CAD$5 million
📝 Use: Take the product to market and close its first ten customers. This includes getting required regulatory clearances (FDA, Health Canada), clinical tests and pilots, business development focused on sales and marketing, and technology focused on R&D and IP.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Fractalytic
Fractalytic eases the transition to electric heating with its convenient and accessible software tool. The company’s solution enables sustainability and energy consultants to effortlessly create perfectly-tailored heating profiles for commercial buildings and optimizes heat pump system design, saving time and eliminating unnecessary costs. In the last three weeks, Fractalytic has received interest from three engineering consulting firms to be the first development partners for its software. The company currently has two pilot customers for its gas monitoring offering.
🏢 Sector: Software/Cleantech
📈 Round: Pre-seed
💰 Amount: CAD$1 million
📝 Use: Funds will be used to reach initial stages of scale, with a target of $1.5 million ARR in 18 months. Funds will primarily be used to hire software developers and customer success staff.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Litespace
Litespace is a SaaS platform that helps businesses manage hybrid and remote teams effectively, while boosting engagement. The platform offers features like smart office scheduling, event recommendations and analytics, empowering companies to cultivate a thriving company culture and enhance employee productivity. Litespace launched its hybrid solution in early 2023 and conducted successful beta testing with five companies, resulting in the creation of over 50 workplaces.
🏢 Sector: Enterprise/Software
📈 Round: Seed
💰 Amount: CAD$1 million
📝 Use: Litespace has recognized that a hybrid solution alone might not fully address all customer needs. Therefore, it is raising a pre-seed round to build out its ideal product, incorporating remote, hybrid, and AI capabilities. This round will support the development and enhancement of its platform to better meet customer requirements.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Leynek
Leynek Medical offers an all-in-one oncology platform that significantly improves the lives of individuals managing cancer. Its comprehensive solution includes a digital guidance tool providing curated content and coaching support interventions. Moreover, the at-home device enables users to connect with their care by obtaining daily key vitals and alerts the oncology team for timely intervention, helping to prevent emergency room visits. In May 2023, Leynek Medical secured funding from its first Angel investor, which played a crucial role in funding key activities. Additionally, the company achieved recognition in the health sciences industry by winning the Invest Ottawa CY19 Ignite Pitch competition in June 2023. Furthermore, in July 2023, Leynek Medical was awarded $25,000 from THRIVE-NCFDC.
🏢 Sector: Software/Health Sciences
📈 Round: Pre-seed
💰 Amount: CAD$300,000
📝 Use: Funds will be used to support essential development activities with a contract medical device manufacturer. Pre-seed funding of $300,000 will be strategically utilized to drive these development initiatives, enabling the company to advance its oncology platform and expand market impact.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Linxdeep Information Technology
Linxdeep provides a full turnkey solution that provides a company full support from Asset Management (HAM) via the company’s full Unified End-Point (UEM) Management system for Android, IOS, MacOS, Windows, Linux, and ChromeOS. Linxdeep is an exclusive UEM Partner for Lenovo, which provides technology and software solutions to global partners. Linxdeep has also deployed its platform with international brands like KFC, CJ Express, Claro and CFE. Linxdeep also partnered with Honeywell to provide its SafePlus+ Solution to partners across Latin America.
🏢 Sector: Enterprise/Software
📈 Round: Series B
💰 Amount: CAD$10 million
📝 Use: Funds will be used to enhance its solution on windows and Linux device management, as well as invest in global sales and marketing teams.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Women founder(s)
Linda Lifetech
LINDA is an AI-based platform to help early detection of breast cancer, the deadliest cancer among women with a new case every 29 seconds. Linda is a mobile device used to capture an image of patients’ breasts which, in just 15 seconds, points to the existence of any breast abnormality that could represent a tumour. LINDA is operating in Brazil with 14 clients and annual revenues of CDN$250,000 Breast cancer is a $10-billion-a-year market, and 25 percent of it is in North America.
🏢 Sector: Enterprise/Software
📈 Round: Seed
💰 Amount: CAD$3million
📝 Use: Establish LINDA’s R&D operation in Canada and go through the regulatory processes to enter the North American market; improve the product and expand its functionality.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Women founder(s)
Mely.ai Solutions
Mely.ai Solutions accelerates supply chain digitalization through its AI-powered solutions. The company focuses on automating document processing and data entry for transportation and logistics industries, utilizing Intelligent Document Processing. By implementing this technology, Mely.ai enables companies to save up to 80 percent of operating costs and improve productivity by 50 percent. Notably, the company has achieved impressive growth, with 3X the Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) compared to the previous year, reaching $110,000 compared to $35,000. Mely.ai has also secured significant partnerships, being signed as the preferred partner at Descartes, one of the world’s largest transportation management systems, and as an innovation vendor at CGI, one of the largest IT companies worldwide.
🏢 Sector: Software
📈 Round: Seed
💰 Amount: CAD$1.5 million
📝 Use: The seed funding will be utilized to further advance Mely.ai’s technology and product offerings, expanding its capabilities to meet the growing demands of the transportation and logistics market. The funds will also support business development efforts and help the company establish a strong foothold in the industry.
🏠 Location: Montreal, QC
Obsiido
Obsiido empowers investors to learn about, access and invest in high-quality alternative investments across private markets, real assets and hedge funds. The company was founded in the summer of 2022 by four founders with deep domain expertise in investments, technology, legal & regulatory and strategy & product development. Obsiido has since scaled to 1,200 prospects, brought on tier 1 vendors, built a fully-functional minimum viable product, raised $815,000 from Bay Street C-Suite executives, $1 million in seed funding and will launch in summer 2023.
🏢 Sector: Fintech
📈 Round: Seed
💰 Amount: CAD$3 million
📝 Use: Funds will go toward capital operations for 24 months post-launch. During this time, Obsiido intends to achieve financial self-sufficiency, with proceeds used for product R&D, sales, marketing, legal, regulatory and overhead.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Women founder(s)
PandoPartner
PandoPartner is a B2B SaaS platform in the sponsorship marketing space that has garnered paying customers, strong testimonials, and growing engagement. The platform serves sports organizations, festivals, venues, charities and other entities, empowering them to efficiently manage and track sponsorship deals and optimize sponsorship revenues. With a founding team boasting over 10 years of experience in this domain, PandoPartner is now poised to expand its operations into the U.S. market.
🏢 Sector: Software
📈 Round: Pre-seed
💰 Amount: CAD$675,000
📝 Use: Funding will primarily be utilized to expand the product by building out a portal for brands (buyers of sponsorships) to interact with sponsored properties. Additionally, funds will be allocated to provide sales and content marketing support for PandoPartner’s U.S. expansion, as well as to fuel overall brand growth efforts.
🏠 Location: Toronto, Ontario
PhenoTips
PhenoTips is the leading software solution for medical genetics, catering to multiple U.K. NHS Trusts, Canadian provincial health authorities, and prominent hospitals in the U.S. The software effectively addresses the challenges encountered in medical genetics by offering a comprehensive single solution, preparing for the integration of genetic testing into mainstream healthcare. With 24 full-time employees and an impressive $1.5 million Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), PhenoTips is actively modernizing its efforts to support national genomic healthcare mainstreaming initiatives. The company is primarily focusing its sales efforts on growth in the U.S. market while simultaneously expanding current operations in the U.K. and Canada.
🏢 Sector: Health Sciences/Software
📈 Round: Series A
💰 Amount: CAD$8 million
📝 Use: Series A funding will be strategically utilized for growth-related initiatives, particularly in the U.S. market. A significant portion of the funds will be allocated to hire and scale sales and marketing teams, enhance customer support and success efforts, and strengthen implementation and DevOps capabilities. This investment will facilitate PhenoTips’ expansion and further establish its presence in the rapidly-growing medical genetics domain.
🏠 Location: Toronto, Ontario
Women founder(s)
#paid
#paid is a high-growth marketplace with a $24.9 million run rate that connects brands with a vast network of more than 80,000 creators for content marketing and distribution. Notable brands like Samsung, Disney, Unilever, Walmart, McDonald’s, and Coca-Cola contributed to $6.3 million in enterprise bookings in Q2, underscoring more than 100 percent YoY growth. The company achieved an impressive 111 percent Net Revenue Retention for brands in H1 2023.
🏢 Sector: Software
📈 Round: Series B
💰 Amount: CAD$2.5 million
📝 Use: Funds will be used for customer acquisition and product development as #paid moves full speed towards Series C.
🏠 Location: Toronto
Riskfuel
Riskfuel builds licensed software for traders at the big banks. With Riskfuel’s AI solution, calculations that once took all night can now be completed in seconds, ensuring traders always have a complete and real-time view of their risk. Riskfuel has grown to 20 engineers and scientists and has contracts with six banks, including BMO and HSBC. Since its founding in 2019, Riskfuel has invested heavily in R&D and has solved the most challenging production risk models. The company has won several prestigious industry accolades, including RiskTech100 and WatersTechnology Sell-Side Awards.
🏢 Sector: Fintech
📈 Round: Seed
💰 Amount: CAD$8 million
📝 Use: Riskfuel has demonstrated product-market fit through its successful contracts with six banks. Riskfuel is now poised to scale and accelerate customer acquisition, solidifying its lead in the market.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Women founder(s)
Solv4x
The company’s AI-based Optefy platform predicts the next 24 hours of dynamic wholesale energy prices, along with energy production mix (fossil fuel versus renewables as the source of energy). Optefy helps cut charging costs by approximately 63 percent, while also driving operational efficiencies and reducing approximately 80 percent Scope 2 emissions. Solv4x is working with universities, regions, and several large companies — including a Fortune 50 company in the U.S. — on scaling this platform. The company is also in several accelerators now, such as CDL (No. 1 accelerator in Canada), and Foresight Canada’s Earth Tech Program.
🏢 Sector: Enterprise/Software
📈 Round: Pre-seed
💰 Amount: CAD $500,000
📝 Use: To continue product building , hire software developers and customer support ($400,000). $100,000 will go toward sales and business development activities.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Women founder(s)
Softdrive
Softdrive is a cloud computing software redefining the personal computer. As businesses rapidly adopt new technologies, the lack of proper computer infrastructure becomes a major roadblock. Softdrive is solving this problem by providing a high performance cloud PC on any device. Whether its rendering, 3D modelling, word processing, video or photo editing, or just browsing the internet, their purpose-built software delivers seamless computing for businesses and consumers alike. Its current clients have experienced a significant boost in productivity and remote work capabilities. Notably, Softdrive stands out from its competitors by offering a 5x faster service, being 2x more cost-effective, and having a set-up time of less than 2 hours.
Softdrive has a MRR of $28k from 30 clients, including 4 enterprise organizations within their initial target market of architects, engineers, and construction. They have experienced an impressive 4x growth over the last 6 months. Their ACV is $12k, with proven expansion and a projected trajectory ACV of $200k.
🏢 Sector: Enterprise/Software
📈 Round: Seed
💰 Amount: CAD $3 million
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
SingleKey
SingleKey is a fintech company dedicated to helping residential landlords mitigate the risks associated with renting. The company offers an industry-leading tenant screening solution alongside a Rent Guarantee program, which provides landlords with security by ensuring rental income in the event of tenant default.
🏢 Sector: Fintech
📈 Round: Series A
💰 Amount: CAD$12,000
📝 Use: The primary reason for this round is to fund expansion in the U.S. market. SingleKey currently generates 5-10 percent of revenue from the U.S. market and more than 90 percent in Canada. The unit economics in the U.S. market are similar to Canada, so this round will be focused on growing SingleKey’s U.S. market share.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Tali AI
Tali is a voice virtual assistant for physicians that saves time they spend on documentation and administrative tasks. The company has a strategic investor (WELL Health) and partner, plus active users and clinics. It is in its early days of revenue generation. Tali is raising a $3-million seed round that will lead the company to $1 million ARR in the next two years.
🏢 Sector: Software/Health
📈 Round: Seed
💰 Amount: CAD$3 million
📝 Use: Dominate the Canadian market and establish its user base and U.S. distributors.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Women founder(s)
TODAQ
TODAQ offers a cutting-edge low/no-code micropayments product that leverages deep-tech to enable the $700 billion API provider market (videostreaming, publishing, AI, B2B) to receive micro-payments — without the need for subscriptions. By utilizing this innovative solution, customers benefit from an expanded market size, increased revenue streams, faster cash cycles, real-time rich data, and reduced back-office costs. In its first three months since founding, TODAQ has achieved significant milestones, securing $1 million in signed contracts, experiencing 40 percent Month-over-Month (MRR) growth, and attracting over 50 pre-qualified customers. The company also enjoys go-to-market support from major cloud providers such as Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, and banks, positioning it for accelerated growth. With this strong momentum, TODAQ aims to reach an impressive Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of $100.
🏢 Sector: Fintech
📈 Round: Seed
💰 Amount: CAD$2.5 million
📝 Use: Seed funding will be strategically used for various purposes, including go-to-market efforts for a 1,000 company pipeline, sales initiatives for pre-qualified customers, enhancing product features, and running a micropayments lab go-to-market in collaboration with banks and cloud companies.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
TritonWear
With 1.5 billion fitness trackers projected to be active in the market by 2028, there is a high demand for these devices. However, most of these devices only serve as data displays and lack meaningful guidance. TritonWear sets itself apart by providing unique guidance through an AI Coach that helps users with skill development, training intensity, and recovery, making data more actionable and insightful. The technology has been officially sanctioned for use in competitions, and TritonWear is currently working with major broadcasters to provide live data during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Notably, 67 Olympians using TritonWear won 24 Olympic Medals in Tokyo. The company has steadily achieved over 10 percent Month over Month (MoM) growth.
🏢 Sector: Software
📈 Round: Seed
💰 Amount: CAD$2 million
📝 Use: The funds will be used to manage working capital on the path to profitability by late 2023. Additionally, TritonWear plans to build out its race mode to support broadcast use in the Paris 2024 Olympics, capitalizing on a significant brand awareness opportunity.
🏠 Location: Toronto, ON
Women founder(s)
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