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AFO · R&D and innovation

Non-dilutive capital that funds the work, not the dilution.

R&D and innovation projects are the single best fit for non-dilutive capital in the Canadian system. Federal refundable tax credits, advisory-plus-funding programs like IRAP, and project-scoped grants like SDTC and the Strategic Innovation Fund stack cleanly with debt or equity — and the CPA who scopes the eligible expenditure pool can dramatically change the project's effective cost.

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What makes this use case distinct

  • SR&ED, IRAP, SDTC, SIF, and provincial credits compared side by side.
  • Eligible-expenditure pool scoped before the work starts.
  • Claim windows tracked so credits don't lapse.

How this is usually structured

R&D / innovation, in practice.

SR&ED is the workhorse. CCPCs get 35% refundable on the first $3M of qualified expenditures, with provincial top-ups stacking on top (Ontario 8%, BC 10%, Quebec varies by sector). The refund lands cash, not a credit against future tax — which means it self-finances the next year's R&D. The claim window closes 18 months after fiscal year-end; once it lapses, the credit is permanently lost, so the discipline of scoping the project, tracking the time, and filing on schedule is the single biggest lever.

NRC IRAP pairs financial assistance — up to 80% of internal technical salaries — with an NRC industrial technology advisor. The advisory side often matters as much as the funding; the advisor sees the technical roadmap, the commercialization plan, and the broader Canadian R&D landscape. SDTC and the Strategic Innovation Fund fund larger, longer-horizon projects (clean tech and industrial respectively) with eligibility narratives that need to be built deliberately.

Provincial digital media tax credits — Ontario IDMTC at 35–40%, BC IDMTC at 17.5%, Quebec CDAE at 30–37.5% — refund eligible labour on interactive digital media development. The Clean Tech ITC refunds 30% on eligible clean-tech equipment investments. Layering these credits with debt (senior or ABL) on the working-capital side, and grants on the project side, is a meaningful capital-stack design decision that the CPA models before the work starts.

10 programs in the catalog · 2 live

Programs that fit r&d / innovation.

Each card links to the program profile. Coming-soon programs are surfaced honestly — the screener routes there with a consultation CTA instead of a self-serve apply link until the integration is wired through.

Other use cases

Funding a different need?

Each use case has its own structuring conversation. Working capital and equipment look nothing like an MBO; an export ramp doesn’t look like a refinance.

  • 1 program

    Export

    Export financing addresses two distinct gaps at once: the up-front cost of entering a new market (research, travel, trade shows, translation, IP protection) and the working-capital cycle of fulfilling export orders (longer DSO, currency exposure, foreign-buyer credit risk). Different instruments cover each gap; the right structure usually layers two or three.

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  • 3 programs

    Working capital

    Working capital is the gap between cash going out (payroll, suppliers, inventory) and cash coming in (collections, deposits). When the gap grows faster than the business can self-fund, the right answer is a facility that scales with the gap — not a fixed term loan paying out long after the cash crunch has passed.

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  • 5 programs

    Equipment

    Equipment financing is the cleanest tier of debt to underwrite — the asset itself secures the facility, the useful life of the asset matches the loan term, and the lender has a clear recovery path if things go sideways. That clarity translates into faster approvals, higher LTVs (75–90%), and less restrictive covenants than cash-flow lending.

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Match the instrument to the use, not the other way round.

Twenty-minute call. Bring the use of proceeds and a rough sense of where the business stands today; we’ll walk through which instrument or stack fits, what providers will want to see, and how long the engagement takes.

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