An Ottawa-based fintech startup that’s using AI to streamline the mortgage approval process is eyeing expansion into the U.S. and looking at adding offerings such as car loan checks as demand for its services ramps up.
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An Ottawa-based fintech startup that’s using AI to streamline the mortgage approval process is eyeing expansion into the U.S. and looking at adding offerings such as car loan checks as demand for its services ramps up.
Now, FundMore.ai’s hockey-stick-like growth trajectory is gaining notice.
The firm was the top Ottawa-based business on the Globe and Mail’s 2025 list of Canada’s fastest-growing companies, which was announced on Friday. FundMore came in at No. 24, with three-year revenue growth of 1,504 per cent.
The burgeoning business was born out of founder Chris Grimes’ frustration with the time, effort and money it took for banks and other financial institutions to green-light loans for would-be homeowners.
After starting out as a mortgage specialist for banks such as CIBC, the Ottawa native spent years as a mortgage agent. Seeing an industry dominated by “outdated technology and inefficient processes,” as the company website describes it, Grimes launched FundMore in 2018.
The firm, which now has more than 30 employees, has created an AI-powered software platform that allows underwriters at banks and other lending institutions to quickly assess an applicant’s creditworthiness.
The software analyzes the lender’s own credit guidelines and taps into data from third parties such as credit bureaus, residential appraisers and fraud detection agencies. FundMore chief revenue officer Kevin Clark says the resulting process is both faster and more rigorous than traditional methods of assessing mortgage applications.
“It actually enhances the credit process – makes it more thorough,” explains Clark, whose resume includes a three-decade run in various senior commercial and corporate banking roles at the Bank of Nova Scotia.
“All of these attributes give the company broadly both hard and soft efficiency gains to manage their business. It’s a really wholesome platform that’s enabled lenders in the mortgage space to advance their businesses significantly.”
FundMore’s customers now include major banks, credit unions and mortgage investment companies from across the country, including Equitable Bank and Meridian Credit Union. In addition to helping those firms check mortgage applications, its platform also scrutinizes applicants for lines of credit and home equity loans.
But Clark says FundMore’s senior executives – who are also the bootstrapped venture’s main financial backers, along with a few private investors – see plenty of other opportunities for growth. They’re now exploring ways the firm might crack the U.S. market and are looking at branching out into other services such as assessing applications for car and personal loans as well as credit cards.
“For us, it’s not how many customers we have, it’s who we have as customers,” Clark adds. “As we grow and our skills grow, we unlock different areas of the lenders’ needs. We have a fantastic pipeline that’s in our sights, and opportunity is at our door. It’s a very exciting time.”
A number of other local organizations also appeared in this year’s Globe rankings, which rely on companies to voluntarily submit applications with supporting financial documents.
Here is the full list of Ottawa-Gatineau firms on the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business ranking of Canada’s top-growing companies for 2025:
- 35. Forage Hyperfoods (957% revenue growth)*
- 39. Autocorp.ai (914%)*
- 123. Noibu (285%)
- 129. MindBridge (268%)
- 187. Knak (184%)
- 236. Lightenco (135%)*
- 284. iFathom (104%)
- 324. Pure Lab Vitamins (81%)*
- 341. WMC Water Management (73%)
- 349. Closereach (68%)
- 357. CanadaWheels (65%)
- 360. Solace (63%)*
- 373. Kettlemans Bagel (60%)
