What is Fundica?

Conseil Saint-Paul has partnered with Fundica to provide an easy way to find government funding in Canada. Through its proprietary search tool and intelligent filtering, Fundica helps entrepreneurs find grants, tax credits, and loan guarantees.

What types of funding programs and financial products are in the Fundica system?

Grants. Grants include government and private sector non-repayable financial contributions to support specific objectives - including wage subsidies, job creation funding, and other non-repayable contributions. Grants are generally provided before or during the investment period.

Tax Credits. Tax credits are government refunds and tax reductions/credits to encourage certain investments. Tax credits are generally provided following the investment period.

Loans.  Loans include government and private sector repayable contributions. Government loans may have more relaxed conditions/guarantees and lower interest rates. Loans are provided prior to the investment period.

Loan Guarantees. Loan guarantees are government support for a loan by guaranteeing or "insuring" the loan or a portion of it in the event of default by the entrepreneur. Loan guarantees are provided prior to being accepted for a loan.

Equity. The equity category in our system includes all private sector investment for a share of the ownership or long term profits in the corporation. This includes direct purchasing of shares, but could also include a variety of more complex investment instruments (including royalties, profit sharing, options, and other instruments) that are not straight loans. Equity investment may come at any time in the investment period.

Accelerators and incubators. Accelerators and incubators are business support organizations that offer structured entrepreneurship support programs that include one or many of: coaching or mentoring services, training, networking, and professional support. They can range from a month to a year and can include a Demo Day or pitch competition event at the end of the program. These programs are typically intended for startups, with incubators being focused towards very early-stage startups in the ideation stage, and accelerators being more appropriate for pre-seed companies with an MVP and initial revenue or seed-stage businesses that are aiming to get the next level with structured support.

Does Fundica the tool include public and private sector programs?

Yes - all in one place. We include federal, provincial, and municipal public sector programs. We also include lender and investors from the private sector and their respective programs/products.

We intelligently search and filter funding programs/products for specific corporations based on exact location (i.e., postal code) and twenty other criteria using our patent pending filtering and search approach. We only include the programs/products that fit within the selected criteria and have available funding to save you time and simplify your life.

How does this system keep itself up to date?

The system is kept up to date by 1) allowing funders to add and modify their programs/products, 2) using a semi-automated funding search program, and 3) being supported by a research team that tracks and updates programs.

How does this tool filter through funding programs?

Two types of filters are used to find funding opportunities:

• Your company's profile acts as the primary filter. It allows Fundica to display initial funding programs for which your company may be eligible. Primary filters are established when you create your account (Free account) or when you create a new profile (Pro account).
• Secondary filters refer to the filtering options you will see when you click on the filters icon in the upper right hand corner when viewing search results. These filters are grouped in the "Operational profile", "Product development", "Hiring and training" and "Strategic transaction" fields. If you are looking for funding for any of these situations, you must enable the corresponding filter to include situation-specific programs in your search results.

Why do you have both year of creation and year of incorporation?

• Year of creation: Many funding opportunities and support programs exist for early-stage businesses and startups, such as microgrants, incubators and accelerators. However, most government funding and some commercial financing requires businesses to be incorporated in order to be eligible.
• Year of incorporation: Once a business becomes incorporated, they become eligible for more government grants, loans, loan guarantees, and tax credits, as well as any many other sources of financing. Certain programs also use the age of the business as condition for eligibility. In that case, the date of incorporation is almost always used instead of the date of creation.