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The new fintech stack for Canadian startups

In 2023, I decided to build a carriage house in my front yard. The catch was I wanted to build it myself, with help of course. I worked half time at the office and half time in the yard for 4-6 months, literally swinging a hammer (ok it was an air nailer). What does this have to do with banking? Well, just as I could see a light at the end of the tunnel and invoices started piling in from sub-trades, I realized the money I had set aside wasn’t going to be enough. I did what any rational person would do — I went online and applied for 4 credit cards at once. 🤷‍♂️ 

After a couple of decades of carefully recovering from bankruptcy (after a failed startup), I have perfect credit, so I wasn't worried about being approved. Within minutes, approvals started coming in: Tangerine, MNBA, Neo, and… my primary business bank for over 10 years, TD, declined. For context on my personal vendetta here, my software company Input employs around 25 people full-time, and we keep enough money in the bank to float the business for 3-6 months. TD has been making bank on us for a decade (see what I did there).

Fast forward to 2025 — Gavin and I are spinning up a branding studio with two of the most badass designers on the planet, Sebastian Abboud and Nick Johnston. After spending far too much time choosing a name, Diver (web site coming soon), we needed to incorporate and get all the banking sorted out. I asked the wise folks on Twitter who I should bank with.

Along with the big 5 banks, a few digital options emerged. Most notably Loop, Float, Vault, and Finofo. Here’s the stack I eventually settled on.

Incorporation (Ownr)

First, I chatted with ChatGPT to generate the Articles of Incorporation and Shareholders agreement, but then I realized I wanted to start with multiple share classes for future “dividend sprinkling”, so I paid the $500 and incorporated with Ownr. It was easy peasy and we had our legal documentaton in a couple of hours.

Primary Banking (Vault)

I have used Loop, Float, and Vault before, and already had an active employee expense card in Vault for our coworking space, and then Saud popped into my Twitter thread and I discovered I could use them for receivables — I decided to go all in on Vault. I’ll report back in a few months once we’re making real money in there.

Payroll (Humi)

We’ve been using Humi for payroll at Input for a few years and it’s been rock solid, so I didn’t spend much time thinking about this — I just registered another account for the new business. Humi sells themselves as a payroll, HR, and benefits platform, but we only use the payroll, and the benefits are sold through resellers, so they’re not integrated into the Humi software. I’ve heard they’ll sort that out sometime, but it’s been a few years. I’m honestly dying for a digital first benefits company in Canada, which leads me to Tedy.

Benefits (Tedy)

I discovered Tedy last year while searching for better ways to manage our employee HSA (health spending account). Basically, our benefits insurance premiums have been going up every year regardless of whether the team uses their benefits or not. Plus, with the management fees, etc I realized it would have been cheaper just to pay for everyones claims out of pocket, so that’s what we do with Tedy. Tedy manages the claims through a nice interface, and our Vault account just gets deducted when there is a claim.

Accounting (Ceedar)

A year or so ago, I was having coffee with Connor and Pegah as they described their AI bookkeeping startup idea to me — I was intrigued but admittedly I didn’t follow along too closely afterward. Then out of nowhere Andrew Wilkinson tweeted excitedly about Ceedar, their product which had just launched.

Big praise from Andrew, so I immediately reached out to Connor and am trying it out as a Xero alternative. So far I’m super happy and literally begging Connor to let me invest (he’s not taking outside capital, yet).

Wrap up

So that’s it — the new Canadian fintech startup stack. Let me know if you’ve find other solutions to these items and I can update the list as time goes on.

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