Foundify

Foundify gamifies startup funding. Founders advance through tiers to unlock capital, providing lenders with a pipeline of high-quality, vetted borrowers. We're funding founders faster.

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Market Research and Problem Validation

The Canadian digital lending market had a revenue of $812 million in 2024 with a 27% CAGR, showing that it will continue to grow exponentially. This market is made up of mostly digital lenders that focus on personal loans, like Fig Financial (https://fig.ca/en/). At the same time, creating a startup is as accessible and as popular as it's ever been, as seen from YC Combinator's increasing number of applicants YOY. We also conducted a survey here at SPURHacks, and 87% of participants say that want to own a startup one day. However, especially in Canada, founders have a difficult time obtaining funding, especially when they are pre-revenue. The key reasons are:

  1. Grants are hard to find and have lengthy application processes, resulting in poor number of applicants.
  2. Lenders have a hard time trusting pre-revenue founders with borrowing money, as they have no financial history to base their trust on.
  3. Applying to grants/loans is a lengthy process, taking precious time away from building.
  4. Grants, incubators, and funding events can have a competitive application process.

From our survey, 76% of participants said a microloan of $2000 for their startup would be very helpful, and 82% of them are confident they will be able to pay it off in full. There's clearly a disconnect between funding opportunities and ambitious founders. This is where we come in...

Business Model & Feasibility

We operate as a digital founder-lending matchmaking platform that connects early-stage and established startups with loan providers and grant opportunities. Revenue streams include commission fees on successfully matched loans, interest margin spreads between lender rates and borrower terms, and a premium AI-driven subscription service that provides founders with tailored funding insights, automated grant applications, and progress tracking tools. By acting as a capital access broker rather than a lender, we reduce financial risk while maintaining high scalability. Our model is lean and repeatable with new markets able to be launched quickly with minimal regulatory overhead, making nationwide and international expansion feasible, efficient and cost-effective.

Innovation & Differentiation

Unlike other traditional lenders that just want to lend one big lump sum of money to a user at once, we want founders and lenders to build strong trust with each other. We do this through our 'Borrower Building' system, where our founders and lenders are matched with each other through mutual interests. We also 'Gamify' the process of paying back loans, where our founders first receive and pay out smaller loans to our lenders before being eligible for larger amounts. In doing so, they build "reputation" that builds both financial confidence and proof they can pay off larger sums of money. That way, lenders get low-risk, high-quality individuals, and founders get reputable sources to fund their dreams.

Presentation & Communication

Our pitch is concise, engaging and we focus on real pain points from two perspectives; lenders and founders. We use primary data sources (survey we conducted at SPURHacks) and real market data to back our claims, validate our problem and provide a clear business model overview. All questions regarding pricing, feasibility, a mockup UI and scalability are addresses in the presentation with visuals and data, ensuring a fully thorough presentation.

Go-to-Market & Impact

We will launch online targeting founders at every step in their journey, private lenders, banks, and grantors through online advertisements, LinkedIn posts, strategic partnerships, and pitching. Our grant application service will onboard startups at the beginning of their journey, while our loan and reputation model will drive repeat business. We’re targeting a Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) of 1% of Canada’s $812M digital lending-market representing ~$8M in revenue over the next 1–2 years. This sits within a broader $10B+ Total Addressable Market (TAM) for global digital-lending. With the Canadian alternative lending space growing at a 27% CAGR, we’re positioned to scale rapidly alongside market demand. Long-term, we plan to expand across Canada and the United States and introduce advanced tools that transform how founders access early funding and navigate the grant landscape.

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