Montreal, increasingly known as a hub for A.I, its Fintech arena has just been as impressive. Last year, Caisse Depot and Desjardins combined forces to launch a 75-million dollar fund for fintech startups. That, along with Desjardins’ Cooperathon and Finance Montreal’s Forum Fintech, are testaments to Montreal’s growing fintech community. Most recently in January, the Paris Fintech Trade Mission was formed by Chambre de Commerce du Montreal Metropolitain, Finance Montreal and FormFintech and is another example showcasing the increasing interest among corporates and startups to take one step further to put Montreal on the map globally in Fintech.

To keep the momentum going and following the success of the first ever Fintech Formathon in Montreal, FormFintech launched another mega program in collaboration with District 3 Innovation Center – the Ascension program.

FormFintech’s Fintech Model Canvas

 

In total, 12 teams were selected into the 12-week Program. Along with our own Coaches, close to 30 sherpas, with a combined experience of +500 years, coming from global corporations, government entities, respected venture capital firms, consulting giants, renowned incubators, established accelerators and prominent Montreal startups, will guide teams to help them climb their next fintech summit.

The program’s strength comes from its highly comprehensive and adaptable structure. Teams are put through the “Fintech Model Canvas”, whereby each week they will work and evaluate a specific area of their startup. The program will conclude with a demo day this April where all the startups will showcase their company!

The Fintech Startups

Teams come from all areas within fintech such as retail investments (traditional & cryptos), institution investments (including responsible investment), lending, education, marketplace, accounting, insurance and regtech! Discover them below:

Allset: A digital insurance broker that applies machine learning algorithms to help users understand their own needs and discover the most appropriate policy for them. Allset aims to offer a  fast, simple and frictionless online policy-shopping experience.

Aquantix: Create a sophisticated analytics and data driven tool that allows corporations to assess their water risk. The team aims to present this data in a visually appealing and easily understandable format, eventually allowing the end-user to make better decisions.

BlockRewards: Aimed at imparting education on the key tenets of sound financial decisions (saving, spending, investing, lending and sharing) among children below the age of 16. This will be done through a centralized rewards-based system (positive reinforcement), possibly over blockchain.

CPA Online: Provide a streamlined and frictionless tax-filing experience for businesses and individuals by allowing them to find the right accountant and transferring documents online. Accountants on the other hand generate better leads and provide an enhanced customer experience.

Financetoimieux: A service for students that provides personalized referral service so that they can better manage their credit and finances. The startup focuses on a wide range of financial needs including P&C insurance, personal finance and placement.

Hardbacon:  A multi-faceted investment platform that allows individuals to manage their investments, make comparisons among various brokerage firms, learn about best industry recommendations and manage their own portfolios through information and intelligence provided by the app.

Intelligentia: Surprised with the lack of automation in processes at organizations including financial institutions, Intelligentia’s founding team wants to use machine learning and artificial intelligence to develop automated, efficient and streamlined processes for businesses.

Krypto: Krypto delivers data and analysis on cryptocurrencies and provides financial institutions and law enforcement agencies with blockchain and market intelligence. Our AI powered solution makes it easy to identify key information, gather insights and build data visualization reports.

Lexamind: Financial institutions spend hours researching new finance regulations to maintain an acceptable level of compliance. Lexamind is looking to centralize all research in one place over a platform that will be used by lawyers, making their research process easier and faster.

Omnic3: With the goal to improve financial inclusion and create a sustainable employment environment in developing nations, Omnic3 is focusing on creating projects-based trading system where workers and employers can login to exchange services.

Ophelia: Many people are struggling to find an effective & efficient method to pay off debt and accumulate savings. Ophelia plans to solve this problem with solution that takes into consideration a person’s needs in terms of term length, interest rate, payment frequency and savings preferences.

ShareAlpha:  An online platform to provide everyday investors with curated investment and trading ideas from analysts that are ranked on the platform itself. Retail investors can pay for advice that comes from traders, investment analysts and AI systems from all over the globe.

Next steps

For the next 12 weeks, we are more than thrilled to see these teams succeed and establish themselves as thoughtful and innovative Canadian Fintechs. If you are interested in meeting and learning about these startups, you can catch them live at our Ascension Demo-Day this April!Subscribe to get details!