Startup Perks
The Invest Ottawa Startup Perks program connects the startups in our community with exclusive discounts on key platforms and services that help accelerate growth. We are continually adding new perks to the list, so check back often.
We collaborate with corporate sponsors to curate exclusive deals for IO Venture Path companies. To recommend a Startup Perk, please email the IO Community Team.
Our current perks fall under the following categories:
The Startup Perks program and the associated deals are exclusively available to IO Venture Path companies. To join an IO Venture Path program, please take our Venture Path quiz to determine what program is a fit for you.
To redeem or learn more about any of the perks, please email the IO Community Team.
Various perks below are from distinguished IO Venture Path companies – be on the lookout for the distinctive Venture Path logo sprinkled throughout this page, guiding you to their enticing offerings!
AWS Activate is a program designed to provide startups with the resources they need to get started on AWS.
As a valued IO Venture Path company, you are eligible to receive the following benefits:
If you have exhausted your credits, you may be eligible to apply for more. Please send us an email to discuss your options.
Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub brings people, knowledge, and benefits together to help founders at every stage solve startup challenges.
Benefits:
Eligibility:
Apply if you are:
NOT previously enrolled in a Microsoft for Startups program.
Every startup that is accepted into the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub is assigned to one of four levels based on your company stage: Ideate, Develop, Grow, and Scale. The level to which you are assigned is determined by where you are in your startup journey. As your company and Azure usage grow, you will graduate to the next level and unlock more Azure credits and additional benefits up.
Ideate | $1,000 Azure credits – You are refining your startup idea and prototyping your product.
Develop | $5,000 Azure credits – You know your solution has value and you are jumping into developing a minimally viable product.
Grow | $25,000 Azure credits – You have launched your product and are focusing on shipping features and winning customers.
Scale | $150,000 Azure credits – You have product market fit and are ready to focus on scaling your company.
MongoDB for Startups is a database program that focuses on creating valuable technology startup programs, enabling the success of high-growth startups from ideation to IPO. This program gives startups access to the developer data platform for their rapidly scaling ventures.
MongoDB provides a flexible and intuitive document model that enables quick adaptation to your business’s growing needs. MongoDB’s multi-cloud capabilities allow you to leverage all cloud environments and build category-defining modern applications, helping you easily scale your business.
As an Invest Ottawa company, you will receive:
Eligibility requirements:
How to Redeem: Please message Marissa DiNardo at [email protected] for more details.
OVH is one of the leading global IaaS hosting providers, recently ranked 2nd in the world by Cloud Spectator.
OVH has 20 datacenters around the world, including one in Canada outside of Montreal, a fiber optic network of 11.5Tbps, OVH is the largest non-American hosting provider. We currently have over 1.2 million clients around the world and host over 800 startups in our startup program, the Digital Launch Pad.
OVH products include:
IO Venture Path companies are eligible to join the OVH Digital Launch Pad program.
The Digital Launch Pad offers 2 different levels of support:
We offer a total of 12 months of support in our program and up to $100,000 worth of infrastructure, consultation, support, and market strategies and visibility. OVH is a truly transparent company with the most transparent startup program on the market, we do not require equity or lock-ins. Our goal is to help you succeed without having to worry about infrastructure costs.
Speedyrails is a Managed Cloud Hosting provider that will allow you to stay focused on developing your applications and business while our team manages your cloud infrastructure.
As an IO Venture Path client, you are eligible for:
Carta helps private companies manage their cap tables, issue securities, run liquidity events and get 409A valuations. Carta is mapping the global ownership network, so our customers can facilitate transparency and liquidity between their shareholders. Carta manages hundreds of billions of dollars in equity for more than 10,000 private companies, public companies, and investors including Slack, Coinbase, Flexport, and August Capital. Founded in 2012, Carta has raised $67 million from Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital, Menlo Ventures, and Social Capital.
IO Venture Path companies that sign up for Carta will receive a 20% discount on their first-year subscription and waived implementation fees. This offer is available only for companies that are new to Carta.
Chargebee is a recurring billing and subscription management product used by 7,000+ customers across 53 countries. New business owners and entrepreneurs can leverage Chargebee’s plug and play solution to create a frictionless subscription experience, without writing a single line of code. Growing businesses can use Chargebee’s powerful REST API to customize billing workflows.
Chargebee integrates with payment gateways such as Stripe, Braintree, and PayPal; and business applications such as Xero, Quickbooks, and Salesforce. Chargebee is backed by Accel Partners, Tiger Global, and Insight Venture Partners.
As an IO Venture Path company, you have the chance to leverage Chargebee’s most popular plan, Rise, free for one year. This offer, worth $3,600 in savings, will help subscription startups automate core billing and subscription management functionalities that are essential for accelerated growth.
Fusebill empowers businesses with a flexible subscription commerce engine to ignite your growth. Fusebill’s agile software platform automates all aspects of your subscription business including provisioning, recurring billing, revenue recognition and catalog management. Its flexibility allows you to rapidly make changes to meet customer and market demands. Empower your sales and marketing teams with the flexibility they need to structure and offer products and packaging to drive superior results. Simplify your accounting functions, automate your customer communications, reduce revenue leakage and churn, increase cost recovery, all while saving time and money.
As an IO Venture Path company, you will be eligible for Fusebill’s Invest Ottawa Promo Plan, which includes:
At the end of the 12-month period:
IO Venture Path companies are eligible to save 75% off their first 6 months using all QuickBook plans.
Manage your business anywhere, anytime with QuickBooks- the #1 accounting software for small businesses. QuickBooks helps small businesses save an average of $2,500 per year.
Please note that this discount is applied to new QuickBooks accounts only.
Start your company in a few clicks:
Get everything you need to run your business:
Charge your customers—for free:
Wagepoint is a fintech company on a mission to simplify payroll – and maybe even dare to make it delightful! Founded in 2012, Wagepoint makes payroll magic happen for more than 18,000 small businesses, accountants, and bookkeepers across North America. Our online software was created just for small businesses, automating the most time-consuming parts of payroll – like calculating wages and reporting on taxes – so that our customers can get back to doing what they love most. Backed by the world’s friendliest team, Wagepoint is always supportive, never stuffy, and refreshingly human.
As an IO Venture Path client, Wagepoint is offering you 3 months free! You must be a new client of Wagepoint to redeem this perk, however, reach out to the community team for a special offer if you are an existing client.
Fundingportal is a funding subscription service and SaaS provider that helps companies, municipalities, nonprofits, and other organizations to secure grants, government incentives, and other funding.
IO Venture Path companies will receive a 20% reduced rate on all Fundingportal grant writing and editing services. The offer is eligible only for companies in the Invest Ottawa network.
With a mission to make professional therapy accessible, affordable, and convenient, BetterHelp is the world’s largest professional online therapy network, with 25,000 licensed therapists and nearly 3 Million people receiving help. Simply take the quiz and get matched to a therapist that fits your needs within 24 hours. Schedule your first live video, phone, or live chat therapy session and start your journey to a happier, healthier you. Switch therapists or cancel anytime.
IO Venture Path companies and their employees get 50% off their first month of BetterHelp. On top of weekly live therapy sessions, you also get:
TutorOcean is a global tutoring marketplace that enables learners to connect with tutors anytime and anywhere. From math help to language learning, exam prep tests to music lessons, their vetted tutors cover the widest range of topics and grade levels to fit any budget.
Every tutoring session includes a virtual classroom with built-in whiteboards and live video – where you can easily interact with tutors to help achieve your learning goals.
IO Venture Path companies are eligible for 10% off of all Tutor hourly sessions.
BambooHR is the leading online HR software provider helping small and medium businesses elevate the value of their HR function. Their intuitive interface, streamlined implementation process, and responsive support team make it an obvious choice for HR Software. This best-in-class software gives you everything you need to automate your operational day-to-day HR tasks, and access to tons of helpful resources you can use to elevate your practice, generate new revenue streams, elevate your HR process and protect yourself against your competition.
Looking for something more robust or customizable than their basic offering? No problem – check out their Apps Marketplace to see all the seamless integrations they offer.
IO Venture Path companies can take advantage of 35% off of new BambooHR implementation.
Borderless allows innovative companies to enhance value quickly in the fast-evolving world of work by providing the right tech workforce for their unique, on-demand workplace. Borderless enables businesses to have instant matches to pre-vetted tech talent, from a pool of qualified tech talent from over 100 countries.
Borderless hires and manages the workforce for you, so you don’t have to worry about the legal or compliance complexities of hiring and retaining talent in your company!
IO Venture Path companies are eligible for US$10,000 hiring credits to use towards your first 5 hires through Borderless.
Crescendo is a leading inclusion software platform. By delivering personalized microlearning opportunities for employees that save HR teams 70% of the time it takes to launch and maintain meaningful D&I education programs, Crescendo can help you scale your inclusion strategy worldwide and build cultural competence and belonging into corporate cultures in ways that are measurable and scalable over time.
IO Venture Path companies are eligible for Crescendo‘s startup package for 20% off the monthly subscription for your first year.
Business Sherpa Group was created because of a passion to help smaller organizations thrive, and a firm belief that the size of a business shouldn’t limit its potential. EmbaarqHR brings together our team of experts with leading technologies to provide the maximum possible support to SMEs in the most efficient way possible.
By working as part of your team, Business Sherpa Group provides full-spectrum business support. Their “experts + technology” approach to Human Resources, Managed Recruitment, Bookkeeping and Executive Solutions allows organizations to grow, improve performance and spend more time focused on achieving their goals knowing their critical backend business functions are taken care of. Senior and operational experts utilize leading technologies to help businesses thrive by having access to the same kinds of resources large organizations have – but in just the right amount needed.
IO Venture Path companies are eligible for free implementation of EmbaarqHR as well as your first month of services at no charge.
Humi is the leading all-in-one people solution for Canadian businesses. Serving businesses nationwide, Humi supports and enables employers to take better care of their most important asset: their people. Before Humi, there was no truly unified solution that tied together all of the intricacies of employment for Canadian businesses.
Humi can help you:
IO Venture Path companies are eligible for 20% off the total cost for life and Humi will waive the $1,500 Implementation! You must be a new client of Humi to redeem this perk.
Litespace is a SaaS platform built to reconnect employees in hybrid companies. From startups to large enterprises, Litespace improves employee engagement, corporate culture, and productivity. With offerings focused on smart schedule recommendations, event planning, office analytics and slack integration, they help empower employees to strengthen relationships, increase morale, and foster emotional connections.
They also provide a proprietary method to calculate your hybrid office culture score. This insight will guide you on how to build a strong hybrid culture in this new environment and also help you improve your retention rate and maintain employee satisfaction.
IO Venture Path companies are eligible to use Litespace’s premium monthly/annual plan for 75% off during the first 3 months.
Oomple is the global marketplace empowering the next generation of on-demand professionals- such as consultants and freelancers – connecting them directly to companies seeking an agile workforce. With over 50,000 thoroughly vetted professionals, Oomple’s goal is to match you quickly and effectively with the right talent.
By joining the platform, you’ll enjoy a range of benefits including:
IO Venture Path companies can take advantage of a lifetime discount on Oomple’s monthly and 6-months membership. The discounted pricing options are as follows:
$39/month (original value: $99) for unlimited access to the platform.
$29/month (original value: $89) for a 6-month membership with a two-week free trial included.
As your tech business grows, your risk management needs evolve, and TechLife® can help. Powered by Cowan Insurance Group, TechLife provides end-to-end risk management, business insurance, and benefits programs for tech start-ups, scale ups, and enterprises. Work with an expert who understands your risk management needs, so you can focus time and effort on your business.
Info on the TechLife difference:
Signority is one of North America’s leading Digital Signature solution provider and the only solution that offers Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) security in an easy-to-use format.
By eliminating the requirement for a signer to be in a face-to-face meeting to action a document and allowing recipients to conveniently sign documents anywhere — without the need of a printer & scanner — Signority empowers customers to get documents signed faster, speed up application turnaround times and minimize overhead costs.
As a proud Ottawa startup, Signority kindly offers the following discounts for all IO Venture Path companies.
Create, manage and e-Sign docs with ease! Join more than 50,000 customers who make PandaDoc #1 for proposals, quotes, and contract management.
IO Venture Path companies are eligible for a 6-month free trial period plus 50% off for the following 12 months.
Asana is a powerful project management tool that is particularly well-suited for startups. With Asana, startups can streamline their workflows, track projects and tasks, and collaborate more effectively across teams. Asana provides a range of features designed to help startups stay organized and on track. These include customizable dashboards, task lists, calendars, and project timelines. Asana also integrates with a wide range of other tools commonly used by startups, including Slack, Google Drive, and Trello.
All IO Venture Path companies can get access to an eligible paid Asana plan completely free for six months. Offer is exclusive for new users to Asana, or users on a free account.
In need of a main company number, sales/customer service lines, or video conferencing? Dialpad’s mission is to make business communications great.
Built on the Google Cloud Platform for unmatched security, reliability and scale, Dialpad’s product suite covers the full range of modern business communications needs with Dialpad Talk, Dialpad Support and UberConference solutions all powered by VoiceAI. Today more than 55,000 of the world’s most innovative businesses use Dialpad and its seamless integrations with Google G Suite and Microsoft Office 365 to be more productive.
As an IO Venture Path company, Dialpad offers 10 free, lifelong seats of Dialpad Talk (business phone lines) and UberConference (video conferencing). As your startup grows, you can take advantage of scaled discounts on additional licenses, never paying full price for any Dialpad products. Another major plus, video conferencing is always free for unlimited users!
Valid for new Dialpad customers only.
Fellow is the top-rated meeting productivity and team management software. Empower your team to build great meeting habits through collaborative agendas, real-time note-taking, and time-saving templates.
IO Venture Path clients with fewer than 50 employees will get free access to Fellow’s pro features for an entire year. Companies between 50-100 employees will get six months free pro access and companies with more than 100 employees will get three months free.
Notion is a workspace that adapts to your needs. It’s as minimal or as powerful as you need it to be Thousands of startups use this plan to run a wiki, manage projects, share documents, and more — all in one highly customizable workspace.
IO Venture Path companies are eligible for 6-months of free Notion towards a Plus plan and Unlimited AI! Thousands of startups use this plan to run a wiki, manage projects, share documents, and more — all in one highly customizable workspace.
Slenke is a collaborative project management software for teams to securely communicate, manage projects, assign tasks, track time and more. It helps to keep tasks on track without shifting through emails, spreadsheets and endless meetings.
IO Venture Path companies are eligible to receive a free Starter package for the 1st year.
Artemis is an AI-powered data infrastructure for scaling teams. With this platform, you can set up your data warehouse, data pipelines and analytics in minutes rather than a few months.
Artemis is an all-in-one data platform which provides all the tools you need to go from your live data sources to interactive dashboards. It replaces stitching together a cloud data warehouse, an ELT solution, a data transformation solution, a scheduler, and a BI solution.
IO Venture Path companies can have 500 free credits to use Artemis and 3 hours of free data consulting with the team.
Enhance your social media management with Hootsuite, the leading social media dashboard. Manage multiple networks and profiles and measure your audience engagement from one secure, web-based dashboard.
IO Venture Path companies are exclusively eligible for a 90-day free trial.
Are you sending old-fashioned gift cards or vouchers to employees or clients for lunches, coffees, or gifts around the world? Hoppier makes it incredibly easy to send beautifully branded (with your logo) pre-paid Visa cards to large groups of your employees or clients in 60+ countries in just a few clicks. The best part is that unlike traditional gift cards or vouchers; any unused cards go back into your account!
IO Venture Path companies get 20% off their first year!
Hotjar is a website heatmaps and behaviour analytics tool. Get inspired with endless new ideas to improve your product and grow your business with reliable user insights. Understand how users behave on your website, what they need, and how they feel with Hotjar’s heatmaps, recordings, feedback and surveys.
This perk is exclusively available to IO Venture Path companies. To qualify for this perk you must be a new user of Hotjar.
Whether you need to increase leads, accelerate sales, or streamline customer service, HubSpot’s marketing, sales CRM, and customer service software solutions are designed to help companies grow more effectively and efficiently. With HubSpot for Startups, you get access to the same powerful suite of tools at a fraction of the cost.
IO Venture Path companies are eligible for 90% off in your first year using HubSpot, 50% in your second, and 25% ongoing. Startups who have raised over $2 million are eligible for 50% off in their first year, and 25% off ongoing.
Analyze and visualize all your data on always up-to-date dashboards with Klipfolio PowerMetrics. Connect to all your data-sources, build metrics and dashboards to share with your team. Get everybody on the same page with centralized access to shared, up-to-date data for decision-making. Combine data from different sources and metrics in one view and instantly segment, filter, and change visualizations within seconds. Without a line of code.
IO Venture Path companies will be eligible for a 30% discount on all annual subscriptions for their first year.
Leadfeeder is a lead generation and sales intelligence tool for B2B companies. Their mission is to maximize your business’ growth by helping you identify, qualify and connect with companies on your website and better align your sales and marketing teams.
Built on Google Analytics, Leadfeeder helps customers to understand their website traffic. Coupled with our native integrations with widely used CRM solutions and collaboration tools, you have the power to turn your website visitors into sales leads by discovering companies that visit your website, where they click and what they’re interested in. With Leadfeeder, you can unleash the power of anonymous website identification to gain the insights needed to power your sales efforts.
IO Venture Path companies get a lifetime discount of 20% at the time of purchase.
Outreach is the world’s leading Sales Engagement Platform that helps you efficiently and effectively engage prospects to close more deals to grow your revenue faster and more predictably. Make your marketing and sales teams a revenue-driving machine by freeing up their time so they can focus on engagement, target high-value prospects, and find out where prospects are in your sales and marketing funnels and move them through pipelines with the correct marketing methods.
A 10% discount is eligible for new Outreach licenses only. The discount value is determined on a sliding, ‘pay-per-seat’ scale.
Snappa helps marketers, entrepreneurs, and non-designers create online graphics in a snap. It’s super easy to whip up graphics for social media, ads, blogs, and more!
IO Venture Path companies get a team plan (valued at $240) free for a year.
Segment helps over 15,000 startups get analytics right. They collect, unify and send data to all of the tools you use, giving you consistent data, everywhere.
Qualifying companies get:
To qualify, companies must have:
How to Apply: Please message Marissa DiNardo at [email protected] for details.
VirtualAd is a platform that pairs your business with an in-house team of experienced marketers who handle your advertising, and simple software to keep track of how it’s growing your business. Benefit from:
IO Venture Path companies are eligible for $200 off their first month of online advertising and a 10% lifetime discount each month thereafter (Eligible Plans: Starter, Micro, Boutique, Venture, Enterprise). You will also have access to our catalogue of à la carte marketing services at an exclusive 10% lifetime discount. All discounts are available only to companies currently affiliated with Invest Ottawa.
Zendesk builds software for better customer relationships. It empowers organizations to improve customer engagement and
Since August 2016, Invest Ottawa has become a partner of Zendesk for Startups
Eligible IO Venture Path clients will be able to receive $1404 credits for 3 seats on Zendesk Team plan, and 3 agents on Zopim Chat basic plan. The company may choose any plans, but the credit is good for $117 per month for 12 months.
Zendesk for Startups provides a monthly credit for six-months of up to fifty Agents, redeemable for any combination of Zendesk Support, Sell, Talk, Chat, Guide and Explore products, free. Consulting Services, add-ons, integrations and Zendesk Talk minutes are not included.
Qualified startups:
LearnExperts LEAi is a Generative AI learning content authoring platform that enables organizations to rapidly build learning and training content so that you can save 67% time and money with a tool that helps you get started right away. C allows you to use raw source content, upload it into the platform and LEAi applies a best practice learning methodology and generates learning content in seconds from the content you uploaded. Then you can choose from multiple ways to export your course in the click of a button (eLearning, microlearning, instructor-led and video).
Your subscription includes unlimited web hosting, technical support and platform updates. We’ll provide you with free onboarding support and tips and tricks on building training content.
Year One and Two:
Regular Pricing: $3,000 per user/per year + HST (paid in advance)
Discount Offered: $1,500 per user/per year + HST (paid in advance)
Fortress IAM is an Intangible Asset Management system designed specifically for SMEs. Built by IP experts, this user-friendly and cost-effective SaaS solution makes managing intangibles – such as patents, trade secrets, contracts, and more – a breeze. With better business insights and more strategic growth opportunities. Fortress IAM gives SMEs a clear line of sight on their most valuable assets.
Key benefits:
IO Venture Path companies get a 25% discount to license the platform with as many users or collaborators as you would like.
MongoDB for Startups is a database program that focuses on creating valuable technology startup programs, enabling the success of high-growth startups from ideation to IPO. This program gives startups access to the developer data platform for their rapidly scaling ventures.
MongoDB provides a flexible and intuitive document model that enables quick adaptation to your business’s growing needs. MongoDB’s multi-cloud capabilities allow you to leverage all cloud environments and build category-defining modern applications, helping you easily scale your business.
As an Invest Ottawa company, you will receive:
Eligibility requirements:
How to Redeem: Please message Marissa DiNardo at [email protected] for more details.
Reshift Security is a code security tool built for developers to find and fix security vulnerabilities in their custom code. They help startups and scale-ups implement and mature their application security programs, improve security bugs’ identification and remediation rates, and experience fewer false positives.
IO Venture Path companies are eligible to receive the following discount:
All the above packages will receive:
Vanta is the easy way to achieve compliance certifications such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, and more. Thousands of SMBs trust Vanta to automate their security monitoring and get ready for compliance audits in weeks instead of months. Simply connect your tools to Vanta, fix the gaps on your customized dashboard, and then work with a Vanta-trained auditor to complete your certification.
IO Venture Path companies get:
Check out this one-pager to learn more.
MathWorks is the leading developer of mathematical computing software. MATLAB, the language of engineers and scientists, is a programming environment for algorithm development, data analysis, visualization, and numeric computation. Simulink, on the other hand, is a powerful graphical environment that enables users to design, simulate, and test systems without needing to write C, C++, CUDA, or HDL code.
Technology startups worldwide rely on these product families to accelerate the pace of discovery, innovation, and development in automotive, aerospace, electronics, renewable energy, financial services, biotech, and other industries.
More than 5000 startups have benefited from the support provided by MathWorks. Here are a few examples of startups that have leveraged MATLAB and Simulink to drive innovation:
All Invest Ottawa Venture Path Clients can sign up to receive:
GoDaddy is the world’s largest services platform for business owners around the world. They are on a mission to empower our worldwide community of 20+ million customers — and entrepreneurs everywhere — by giving them all the help and tools they need to grow online. With free SSL, industry-leading load speeds, 99.9% uptime guarantee, and expert, 24/7 support, GoDaddy helps you to be fast and secure online.
IO Venture Path companies are eligible to get a domain (.com) for $2.99 USD* from GoDaddy.com!
Are you an existing user of GoDaddy? Get unlimited additional .COM Domains for just $9.99 USD each!
*Special domain offer price limited to one per customer and is available only to new customers for the first year of one new or transfer domain
InVisionApp is the world’s leading prototyping, collaboration and workflow platform.
Invest Ottawa Venture Path Clients are eligible for 6 months free of InVisionApp. If you are already an InVisionApp account owner, we will work with our partners at InVisionApp to get you an account upgrade.
If you already have an account, please email your username to the IO Community Team who will send details to apply the upgrade.
Your website is often your first point of contact with new customers. It’s critical that the experience is effective and differentiated.
Built in the Byward Market, PageCloud knows first-hand what it means to be a local startup. Launched in 2015, PageCloud is now trusted by customers in over 100 countries.
No code. No approximations. Get exactly what you want with the support you need to get there from the #1 rated site builder on TrustPilot.
PageCloud is proud to support the community with an exclusive promo for IO Venture Path companies (includes a free domain and G Suite for professional email). Everything you need to get online and grow your business today.
Valid for 1st payment on new subscriptions.
*Certain conditions apply.