Have you ever wished you could search just one database to find business funding opportunties throughout Canada? Now you can! Guest blogger Mike Lee, Eng., MBA, CFA is a partner at Fundica, a new free online funding search
tool. Read on to learn more about how you can use Fundica for your business.
Fundica is a free online tool that helps entrepreneurs find grants, tax credits, loans and equity; while helping funders find entrepreneurs for their funding solutions. The comprehensive system contains over 2,500 private and public for-profit funding programs and products across Canada.
The matching tool includes our patent pending technology: an identification and matching system that enables entrepreneurs to match their activities, projects or corporate direction with funding & advisory providers. The tool also includes customizable notification capabilities and intelligent filtering, enabling users to get quick search results based a number of variables relating to their business such as industry type, time of incorporation, revenue, and more.
Enter the information about your company and Fundica will provide you with links to programs that you can apply for.
There are three ways in which the site is kept up-to-date. Funders regularly update the programs themselves on the site; we have developed tools and algorithms to keep programs up-to-date; and we have a dedicated research team.
The idea started when consulting clients via R&D Partners (a sister company of Fundica that assists clients specifically with R&D government tax credits), kept asking us for an up-to-date list of funding programs available for them. We initially tracked the programs on spreadsheets, but then realized that we needed a more automated and systematic approach. In 2010, we began development and testing on a private, web-based system. By 2011, we offered it to the public as a subscription-based service. In 2012, Fundica evolved into the current free service, available to anyone. A Pro service is subscription based and is designed for advisors and primarily provides additional functionality. Fundica also provides related consulting and IT services.
Members of the Fundica team have considerable experience in computer science, tax, finance and funding; and have successfully assisted corporations receive more than $100 million in funding. The original team is still in place and additional resources have since been added.
Talking BC Opportunities
The province of BC has a myriad of funding programs and grants that can assist its ever-growing tech and R&D sector.
One of the most well-known and most applied for programs is the SR&ED Tax Credit. In BC, the tax credit rate is 35% for the federal portion and 10% for the provincial portion. The SR&ED tax credit program is an excellent program for firms undertaking scientific research or experimental development.
There is also the Interactive Digital Media Tax Credit (IDMTC). This tax credit can help those organizations developing television and digital media products by offering them a 17.5% refundable tax credit for eligible salary and wages. In the 2012 BC budget, it was clarified that “cutscene” productions now clearly fit the definition of interactive digital media. Cutscenes are usually regarded as animated or live action scenes included in a video game to provide storyline or context
The Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) and Canadian Innovation Commercialization Project (CICP) are two other programs for businesses trying to bridge the R&D to commercialization gap. Try out the Fundica search tool now at www.fundica.com!
PHOTO CREDIT: A happy aged couple surfing on a laptop created by s_falkow, on Februrary 6, 2009. Photo made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 license. Last viewed on October 11, 2012.