Canadian Fintech: More Stablecoin Funding 🤑

Good morning! Welcome back to the Canadian Fintech Newsletter, an industry roundup for founders, operators and investors.

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💰 Funding

• Tilt, a tool to create your own direct stock market indexes, raised USD $7m from Portage, Golden, & Real Ventures.

  • The company is founded by Andrew Peek, a Toronto founder now based in NYC. Peek also is the founder of Delphia, an algorithmic trading platform that raised $60m in 2022.

• Stablecorp, the issuer of Canadian dollar stablecoin QCAD raised $5m led by FTP Partners.

  • Earlier this month, competitor Tetra raised $10m to launch their own CAD stablecoin.

  • Stablecorp is backed by several international crypto platforms including Coinbase (exchange) & DeFi Technologies (asset manager).

• A slate of freshman VCs just closed their inaugural funds:

  • Telegraph, a spin off of European fund Telegraph Hill Capital closed Fund 1 to back Quebec based AI companies.

  • Simple Ventures, a venture studio backed by Canadian entrepreneurs (including the namesake founder of Wealthsimple) closed Fund 1.

  • North Exit Ventures, a fintech fund backed by Canadian exited entrepreneurs (and run by yours truly) closed Fund 1.

🤝 M&A

• FlipGive, a Toronto based cash-back card for fundraising campaigns was acquired by US based RaiseRight, an online fundraising platform.

  • FlipGive raised $5m in 2023 from BDC and Framework Ventures.

• Sagard, the Canadian alternative asset manager with large domestic fintech holdings, acquired Swiss investment manager Unigestion’s private equity business.

• Manulife’s wealth and asset management division is acquiring UK asset manager Schroder’s Indonesian business. has agreed to buy U.K. asset manager Schroders’ business in Indonesia.

• Vancouver City Savings Credit Union and First Credit Union have received approval from BC regulars to merge.

• RBC says that it’s looking to hop on the m&a train and acquire a large US based wealth manager.

  • Just this past summer,BMO acquired Burgundy Asset Management for $625m.

  • Desjardins acquired Guardian Capital for $1.7b.

  • Canaccord acquired Wilsons Advisory, an Australian firm.

  • iA Financial acquired RF Capital, a Winnipeg based high net worth advisor for $600m.

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🚀 Product

• Flybits, a Toronto based bank infra company launched an “agentic banking” product.

  • Think of it as a chat-style assistant that can pull together cards, loans, deposits, insurance, etc., in one convo, rather than sending customers into different app sections.

• BMO is considering selling off some of its US branches with about $6b in deposits.

• National Bank’s investment funds management division crossed $100b in AUM.

• Alternative Payments, a US based b2b payments company expanded into Canada.

• TREB, the real estate board of Toronto launched tenant credit, income, employment, rental history, background checks through a partnership with Toronto based Cove.

⚖️ Policy

• FINTRAC hit KuCoin, a crypto firm with a $19.6m fine, its biggest ever.

  • FINTRAC raised its max fine limit to $20m last year.

  • KuCoin also paid a $2.1m fine to the OSC in 2023 for operating without a license.

🧍People

• Mark Leonard, the legendary founder of Constellation Software, a niche software private equity firm is stepping down as President for health reasons.

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Have a great week! See ya 👋

-Tal Schwartz