Youssef(30)

In Utrecht I had developed a successful payment app for the Moroccan-Dutch community — money transfers to Morocco at low cost. It worked well, but the Dutch market was too small to scale. Canada has the second-largest Moroccan diaspora in the world (after France) and an enormous market for cross-border fintech. The Start-up Visa program was my ticket.

The SUV process began with finding a designated organization to support my startup. I pitched to three incubators in Toronto and was accepted by the DMZ at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University). Their Letter of Support was the key to my visa application. The entire process took twelve months — including background checks, medical exam and financial proof.

Toronto's fintech ecosystem is impressive. MaRS Discovery District, North America's largest urban innovation hub, houses hundreds of startups. The Big Five banks (RBC, TD, BMO, Scotiabank, CIBC) all have fintech partnerships and venture arms. I secured a pilot project with one of the Big Five within three months — something that would take years in the Netherlands.

Toronto's diversity was crucial for my product. My app now serves not just the Moroccan community but also Filipino, Indian and Nigerian Canadians sending money home. The market is enormous: Canadians send more than CAD 30 billion in remittances annually. My Dutch-Moroccan background wasn't a disadvantage but a unique selling point — investors valued my cultural insights.

Business culture in Canada is less direct than Dutch but more professional than I expected. Pitch events are well organized, investors are accessible and the government offers substantial support through programs like IRAP (Industrial Research Assistance Program) and the SR&ED tax credit for R&D. My IRAP grant of CAD 50,000 funded my first developer.

After two years I have a team of six, 15,000 active users and a Series A round in preparation. My PR status through the SUV gives me stability while building my company. Toronto is expensive, competitive and sometimes overwhelming — but for an ambitious entrepreneur there's no better place in Canada. My advice: if you have a product that works in the Netherlands, it can become ten times bigger in Canada.