How Tech and Fintech Startups Secure Six-Figure Grant Funding

Six-figure non-dilutive funding is realistic for Canadian tech and fintech startups, but it almost never comes from a single program. It comes from stacking two or three programs that don't disqualify each other: R&D funding, a research collaboration grant, and sometimes a provincial innovation fund layered on top.

The core stack

IRAP funds R&D salaries directly and can reach $500,000 for larger projects. SR&ED refunds up to 35% of qualifying R&D spend after the fact, on top of whatever IRAP already funded. Used together, they cover a meaningful share of a technical team's cost during a build phase.

Where fintech-specific funding differs

Fintech startups building genuinely novel infrastructure, like payments, compliance automation, or fraud detection, typically qualify for the same R&D-focused programs as any other tech company. The thing grant reviewers actually look for is technical uncertainty: are you solving a problem nobody's solved before, or integrating existing financial APIs? The former qualifies for R&D funding. The latter generally doesn't.

University research partnerships

Programs that fund a researcher to work on your technical problem, rather than funding your own team, are underused by both tech and fintech startups. They're smaller individually but combine well with IRAP and SR&ED since they fund a different cost line entirely.

Next steps

Run FundScout's free eligibility check to see your full stack of available R&D and innovation funding. Check your matches.