BMO and the DMZ at Ryerson University have announced the winners of the DMZ-BMO Fintech Accelerator Demo Day.
Of the four finalists, Viviplan, a company that automates high-end financial plans, took first place and received $65,000. Fortuna.ai, an artificial intelligence platform that automates business development, came in second with a prize of $35,000.
“We look forward to continuing to work with the winners and exploring how we can couple their technologies within the bank’s existing systems and platforms to enhance the customer experience and deliver more industry-leading solutions to market quickly,” said Andrew Irvine, head of Canadian business banking and BMO partners.
The DMZ-BMO Fintech Accelerator was created in May with the goal of helping top Canadian FinTech startups expand through four months of incubation and mentorship.
During the incubation, the entrepreneurs were offered a variety of resources including free residency at the DMZ, access to advise from venture capitalists and C-level individuals, learning opportunities at BMO- hosted sessions on macroeconomics and industry trends and insights, and more than 60 hours of mentorship from BMO executives.
“This has been one of our greatest surprises given the caliber of the competition in this year’s DMZ-BMO Fintech Accelerator,” said Rona Birenbaum, co-founder and CEO of Viviplan. “The DMZ’s commitment to building bridges between BMO and the best-in-class fintech startups has helped us further develop our product and accelerate our growth in an amount of time that would’ve been impossible anywhere else.”