Intuit has announced this year’s cohort for the Intuit Prosperity Accelerator: Toronto.
The global financial technology platform behind brands like TurboTax, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp operates a four-month program in which eight fintech startups “refine and scale products designed to improve the financial prosperity of Canadian consumers and small businesses and combat their most pressing challenges.”
Powered by Intuit’s venture capital partner, Highline Beta, the program involves pairing each startup with an expert at Intuit who will mentor them on an approach to customer-driven innovation—a process which has propelled Intuit throughout its 40-year history, according to a statement from the company.
“We’re thrilled to be teaming up with Intuit again to tap into Toronto’s burgeoning technology ecosystem and work with some of the city’s most innovative early-stage entrepreneurs,” stated Hussam Ayyad, chief accelerator officer at Highline Beta.
In addition to these “Innovation Catalysts,” startups will also gain access to experts from the broader industry who specialize in areas such as product design and development, marketing, sales, engineering, and venture capital.
“Startups that graduate from accelerator programs have a higher survival rate than their counterparts,” noted David Marquis, vice president and Canada country manager at Intuit, citing data from Innovate BC.
Intuit also expects the Prosperity Accelerator to provide fintech startups with increased visibility in the investment community “at a critical time for the industry,” with investment numbers down across the country.
“Besides their focus on helping Canadians combat some of today’s pressing economic challenges, the startups themselves are facing a harsh macroeconomic outlook and need our help now more than ever,” suggested Ayyad.
The cohort consists of:
- Carbonhound, an all-in-one platform that helps small businesses simplify carbon management by consolidating measurement, reduction, offset, and marketing services in one place.
- NetNow, a buy-now-pay-later and checkout platform for B2B transactions, focusing on companies in the construction industry.
- Requity Homes, a real estate platform that’s modernizing the path to homeownership through a rent-to-own program.
- Spruce, an AI-powered loan origination and decisioning software that can collect, analyze, underwrite, and monitor small business data.
- Chexy, a payments platform that allows tenants to earn rewards and build credit on rent, leading to potential homeownership.
- goPeer, a peer-to-peer lending platform that provides low-interest loans to borrowers, while generating interest for investors from excess capital.
- LenderBidding, a licensed platform that offers salaried agents for consumers who seek to borrow from a private lender.
- Parachute, which offers loans and supports consumers to improve their financial wellness through debt management, financial literacy education, savings strategies, and more.
Over the past two years of the Prosperity Accelerator program, Intuit has worked with 15 startup participants and helped position them to raise $24 million.
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