$1.7B in 2023. $2.5B today. Here's what changed.

In January 2023, Rebecca Kacaba joined us for a TechTO fireside and made a case most people in the room weren't ready to believe. Capital raising, one of the last major financial workflows that hadn't been digitized, was about to change.

She was right.

She'd come to TechTO events as a founder who needed to get inspired. Her words, not ours. She'd left her law partnership at one of the world's largest firms, two kids under two at home, husband doing his MBA, and bet everything on a problem she'd watched eat founders alive for over a decade: paper subscription documents, absurd legal fees, weeks lost to a process that should take days.

In 2018, she and co-founder Mat Goldstein built DealMaker, a platform that lets companies raise money directly from their own customers, fans, and communities using an e-commerce-style checkout with integrated compliance, payments, and analytics.

No technical co-founder. Every naysayer told two lawyers they couldn't build a platform. She has a name for what got her through: Adversity Quotient. When most people hit resistance, they read it as a stop sign. She reads it as a signal that something interesting is on the other side.

By January 2023, DealMaker had transacted $1.7 billion through its platform. The Globe and Mail ranked it Canada's 3rd fastest-growing company in 2022. The Green Bay Packers had raised $65.8 million from their own fans on it to upgrade Lambeau Field. When asked about the year ahead, she said she was planning for a down market for the next six months.

What happened next was faster than even she predicted.

In 2023: #2 on Fast Company's Best Workplaces for Innovators. Deloitte Fast 50 Companies-to-Watch. 6th fastest-growing company in Canada on the Globe and Mail list, second consecutive year on the ranking.

Then the moment that made it real. At a company retreat in Mexico, a retail investor stopped her by the pool to thank her for the profit he'd made from companies he'd invested in through the platform. He knew the founders. He'd tracked their progress.

2025 was not quiet. In February, Rebecca testified before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, a Canadian founder, in front of Congress. In July, DealMaker acquired Rally On Media and moved headquarters to New York City. In November, $20 million in financing from Information Venture Partners and CIBC Innovation Banking.

 Today: $2.5 billion in investment volume.

Her goal for the next 12 months, when a CEO opens their capital strategy, retail investors should be on slide one. Not an afterthought.

In 2023 she told this community she was building something different. Three years later, $2.5 billion later, Congress later - come hear what she says now.

💰 Your T2 filing deadline is June 30 - but your payment was due March 31

If your fiscal year ended December 31, your corporate tax balance was due March 31, but only for qualifying CCPCs. The general rule for most corporations is two months after year-end, which for a December 31 year-end means February 28. Either way, the T2 return itself isn't due until June 30, but interest accrues from the payment deadline, not the filing deadline. Two separate dates. Most founders only remember one.

If you haven't paid yet, don't wait until June. Pay now to stop the clock on interest. Not sure which deadline applies to you? Check with your accountant.

💰 SR&ED just got a meaningful upgrade

The CRA introduced an elective pre-claim approval process for SR&ED as of April 1, 2026, cutting review times and giving founders technical sign-off before they spend. If your fiscal year ended December 31, your SR&ED claim deadline is June 30, 2026. Extensions are not allowed.

If you've been doing R&D and haven't filed your claim yet: you have a deadline and a faster process. Use both.

💰 You can get up to 64% of your R&D spend back

That number applies to eligible salary expenses for qualifying CCPCs, rates vary depending on the type of expenditure. Boast will tell you exactly what qualifies for your situation. TechTO members get 10% off their first-year SR&ED claim with Boast, plus a free SR&ED Tech Scoping Assessment.

Worth 30 minutes to find out what you're leaving on the table.

Commerce Toronto is where Canada's retail, e-commerce, and CPG community actually gets together.

April 21. Rotman School of Management. 200+ founders, operators, and brand builders in one room, and a curated marketplace on the floor where CPG brands bring their latest products to life. You can discover, taste, and connect directly with the people building them. This is the kind of event where the conversation you have by the product display leads somewhere real.

The stage brings founders who have done it in categories most people underestimate.

Josh Guttman spent 11 years at Salesforce, helped steer Lane Technologies to a $200M exit, and is now building SELLIT9 - a trade-in platform unlocking instant liquidity for pre-owned household items. He understands what it takes to build revenue from zero and what consumer behaviour actually looks like at scale.

​Ian Slipacoff (owner of Dumouchel Meat & Deli) is a third-generation butcher who built one of Canada's first direct-to-consumer fresh meat e-commerce platforms into, what he describes as a multi-million dollar business by combining craft, discipline, and a deep understanding of what customers actually want. He took something deeply physical and made it work online before most people thought it was possible.

And more speakers to be announced soon.

If you are building a physical product, a consumer brand, or an online store, or trying to figure out how to get from early traction to real distribution, this is the room where that conversation is happening.

Early bird tickets are $20 until April 6. Free for TechTO members.

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