Toronto is Canada’s largest city and also a continental technology hub. It is home to a few of the top start-ups in Canada as well as North America. The capital city of Ontario is also an international business center with a thriving start-up ecosystem. Good events for start-ups will always be sought after by budding entrepreneurs, as they will help them grow as top businessmen. Canada ranks fourth among the most influential start-up hubs worldwide, the first three being the US, Israel, and the UK. Having said that, some of the top start-ups to watch in Toronto in 2021 are:
1. Nextech AR Solutions
NexTech AR Solutions, one of the top start-up businesses in Toronto, develops Augmented Reality advertising platforms that engage customers by connecting them with brands and their retail locations. The tech company pursues operations in four verticals – Virtual Conference Platform, 3D/AR Advertising Platform, SaaS Platform for eCommerce, and ARitize Hollywood Studios.
About – Augmented Reality advertising platform
Founder – NA
Year Founded – 2018
Industry – Advertising, Advertising Platforms, Augmented Reality
Total Funding Amount – $10.7 million
2. OpenCare
Opencare, one of the top Canada start-ups, is focused on changing the way patients and dental care professionals interact by establishing a premium dental care network. Patients can find the right dentist, book an appointment, and be confident that they will get top-quality care. It also helps top dentists to easily grow their practice.
About – Dental care network
Founders – Alex Chyrtsik, Cameron Howieson, and Nikolai Bratkovski
Year Founded – 2012
Industry – Dental, Fitness, Health Care, Wellness
Total Funding Amount – $24.6 million
3. Drop
Drop, one of the top ecommerce start-ups offers a customer loyalty program. Users earn points through their linked debit/credit cards. The members who purchase items via Drop earn Drop "points", which they can redeem to get gift cards from selected partner retailers. Drop uses data and insights from users to create as well as curate innovative products. New and diverse products are featured every day, and this helps people around the world to find as well as follow their interests, share, shop, and contribute to product development. Popular categories in Drop include audio, technology, the outdoors, apparel, and cooking.
About – Customer loyalty program
Founders – Nelson Wu and Steve El-Hage
Year Founded – 2012
Industry – Communities, eCommerce, Product Design, Shopping
Total Funding Amount – $92.5 million
4. Ritual
Ritual, one of the top start-up ideas, is a social ordering application. It taps into co-workers’ and colleagues’ networks for quick and easy pick-up as well as payment at a wide range of local coffee shops and restaurants. It helps users place orders through their mobile phones and pay at their favorite local coffee shops and eateries. It also allows friends and colleagues to add their orders to an existing order. In addition to saving time for customers, it drives incremental business for merchants.
About – Ordering App
Founders – Larry Stinson, Robert Kim, and Ray Reddy
Year Founded – 2014
Industry – Apps, Coffee, Food and Beverage, Mobile
Total Funding Amount – $134.8 million
5. League
As one of the top software start-ups in Toronto, League helps to reduce the stress involved in managing the health benefits of employees. It makes life easier for HR managers through automation within the platform. Employees can engage with their lifestyle, health, and benefit programs through the single access hub provided by League.
About – Employee health benefit management
Founder – Michael Serbinis
Year Founded – 2014
Industry – IT, Software
Total Funding Amount – $76.1 Million
6. WealthSimple
WealthSimple provides financial tools that help investors manage and grow their money. In addition to helping investors build a diversified ETF portfolio, it provides the guidance they need to achieve their financial goals. The investment management service targets millennials who are looking for simplified investment and banking solutions.
About – Finance management
Founders – Brett Huneycutt, Rudy Adler, and Michael Katchen
Year Founded – 2014
Industry – Finance, Financial Services, FinTech, Impact Investing, and Personal Finance
Total Funding Amount – $900.4 million
7. Clearbanc
Clearbanc, one of the famous tech startups in Toronto, focuses on executing revenue-share agreements with other start-ups and offers equity-free investments in businesses. It uses its AI-based propriety software to evaluate and determine the health of companies. As a pay-as-you-grow pioneer and eCommerce investor, Clearco aims to remove the obstacles between excellent ideas and brilliant businesses.
About – Custom software products for start-up founders on their journey and determining the health of investment companies
Founders – Andrew D'Souza, Charlie Feng, Ben Sanders, Ivan Gritsiniak, Olivier Grinda, Michele Romanow, Tanay Delima, and Pavel Melnichuk
Year Founded – 2015
Industry – eCommerce, Financial Services, FinTech, Internet, Venture Capital
Total Funding Amount – $681.5 million
8. Integrate.ai
As one of the top tech startups, Integrate.ai offers a SaaS product for large-scale software and data platforms that enables privacy-safe sharing across their customers. The exclusive trusted signals technology developed by the company employs advanced machine learning and privacy-safe methods to improve machine learning. The company aims to embed human values into decision algorithms by creating an intelligent ecosystem that is beneficial to people and organizations.
About – SaaS Product
Founder – Steve Irvine
Year Founded – 2017
Industry – Artificial Intelligence, Data Integration, Enterprise, Enterprise Software, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, SaaS, Software
Total Funding Amount – $49.6 million
9. Borrowell
Borrowell, a company focused on providing credit education, offers a digital tool for checking credit scores for free. Users can also get educated and monitor their credit status on a weekly basis. In addition, Borrowell offers innovative digital tools for financial product recommendations powered by AI and personalized credit coaching.
About – Digital financial tool for credit monitoring
Founders – Andrew Graham and Eva Wong
Year Founded – 2014
Industry – Artificial Intelligence, Credit, Finance, Financial Services, FinTech
Total Funding Amount – $92 million
10. Ada
Ada, a computer software developer, offers chatbot-based platforms that help large enterprises with automating customer support services. The platforms operate on both web- and mobile-based systems. In addition, they come with a machine learning engine that enables businesses to reduce their support volume as they empower customers to find answers to their issues on their own.
About – Chatbots for customer support
Founder – Mike Murchison
Year Founded – 2016
Industry – Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Systems, Machine Learning, SaaS, Software
Total Funding Amount – $190.6 million
Final Thoughts
Toronto is fast becoming one of the top startup hubs in Canada as many technology companies are setting up facilities in the city. This, in turn, has led to the mushrooming of startup incubators and accelerators in Toronto. The companies listed above are only a few of the best new startups in Toronto. All these start-ups had humble beginnings and many of them had a tough time finding the funding needed to take their business forward. However, they never quit. Strong dreams, a clear vision, and persistence helped them succeed.
Zartek Technologies is one of the upcoming top enterprise software start-ups in Toronto, and if you are wondering what you should do with the life-changing idea/concept that you have, you can either call or write to us with all the details. One of our start-up consulting team members will call you and discuss your project in detail.
