Export Development Canada has led a US$85-million financing of one of Canada’s fastest growing financial technology companies, Brim Financial Inc., the latest in a string of big-ticket growth equity investments of innovative domestic startups by the federal Crown corporation.
“We definitely see other markets on the horizon, but we’re very deliberately taking a Canada-U.S. approach before expanding in order to make sure that our delivery and platforms remain very strong,” said CEO Rasha Katabi, a financial services veteran executive who co-founded the company in 2015. She said the financing valued the company “significantly” higher than itsBrim’s revenues have grown 10-fold since then.
But the company pivoted three years ago after receiving inbound interest from potential partners looking to use its proprietary technology as a platform to launch and manage their own credit cards and loyalty programs. Shopify Inc. took a similar path in the late 2000s when it pivoted from selling snowboards online to selling the software it had developed to manage its e-commerce operation.
Its platform replaces “a bunch of disparate systems that provide various bits and pieces of what these issuers need,” said Randy Garg, managing partner with Vistara. “There’s increasingly a real need to bring that on to one platform. That’s what Brim has been able to do here. When the tech works and delivers the payback, it allows you to get rid of a bunch of systems you don’t need. That is what is creating the wins for them.