Startup founders spend plenty of time thinking about their product, customers, and capital. Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst wants security added to the top of that list.
The Catalyst’s upcoming Cyber for Startups program aims to show that cybersecurity can play an outsized role in the most critical stages of company-building. The no-cost program will offer online and in-person cohorts this fall. Participating early- and mid-stage Canadian technology startups will have access to assessments, workshops, tools, templates, and coaching, all aimed at building security into products, operations, and growth plans, from the beginning.
“Cybersecurity doesn’t have to be overwhelming or prohibitively expensive.”
Charles Finlay,
Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst
“For startups, cybersecurity isn’t just about protecting against threats but about creating opportunities,” said Charles Finlay, founding executive director at Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst. “Strong security practices can help founders win customers’ confidence, attract investment, and compete for larger contracts. When security is treated as an afterthought, startups risk closing doors to opportunities they’ve worked hard to create.”
According to Finlay, strong security practices should be considered part of best practices, as those practices help startups with customer trust, enterprise procurement, investment readiness, and access to regulated markets. It also helps companies avoid technical debt, which becomes more costly to address as they grow. Cyber for Startups is geared toward companies that are building or scaling technology products, preparing to sell into enterprise or regulated markets, or looking to strengthen their cybersecurity posture as they grow. These companies face security expectations across several important parts of the business.
Enterprise buyers and regulators, for example, usually want to understand how a startup protects sensitive information, and often ask about controls, policies, or even SOC 2 attestation. Investors may also scrutinize security practices as part of due diligence. Security can also reach back into product development itself, influencing decisions around architecture and how data is handled within a product.
Cyber for Startups is designed to help companies work through each of those challenges in a structured way. During the program, participants will assess their current security posture, identify gaps, and turn those findings into a tailored, long-term roadmap that details which issues need attention now and which should become a milestone later. Crucially, the program focuses on how to communicate security posture to potential clients, helping founders gain trust even when the work is in progress.
“One of the biggest challenges comes when a startup moves from building a product to selling it,” Finlay added. “Suddenly, prospective customers are asking detailed questions about how their data will be protected, what security controls are in place, and how risks are managed. Founders can find themselves scrambling to meet expectations they hadn’t anticipated. We want to help companies prepare for those conversations well before they’re sitting across the table from a potential customer.”
Cyber for Startups is designed to help founders build security into their product development and go-to-market strategies from the outset because cybersecurity requirements need to inform how a product is built, who it will be sold to, and which markets the company plans to enter. Startups that put off these critical decisions risk accumulating technical debt, leaving them with costly and complex security problems to untangle as the business grows.
“Decisions about how data is collected and stored, who has access to systems, and how security is built into a product can seem relatively minor when a company is small,” Finlay said. “But those decisions become much harder and more expensive to reverse as the business grows. Getting the fundamentals right early on can save founders from having to rebuild critical parts of their technology down the road.”
The program is targeted toward the people making these decisions, including technical founders, product leaders, and executives responsible for compliance, risk, or growth. No prior formal cybersecurity training is required.
Cyber for Startups will be delivered across several cohorts across Canada this fall, both virtually and in person. The first in-person cohort will take place in Brampton, Ont., on Nov. 12, in partnership with the City of Brampton, Brampton Innovation District, and the Canadian Cyber Threat Exchange, with funding provided in part by the Government of Ontario. Applications for the Brampton cohort are open until Oct. 30.
Charles Finlay,
“When security is treated as an afterthought, startups risk closing doors to opportunities they’ve worked hard to create.”
Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst
RBC will support two other offerings: an online cohort running through November and December, and an in-person Vancouver cohort scheduled for February. Rolling registration will be available for both.
Offering both formats is intended to make the program more accessible to startups in different regions and stages of growth in Canada. In-person cohorts will run over a single day and prioritize networking and coaching, while the online version spreads the program across four weeks, focusing on roadmapping work.
As startups grow, the financial stakes of cybersecurity can grow with them. Data from the Canadian Internet Registration Authority found that 39 percent of Canadian organizations surveyed this year had experienced a cyber attack in the last 12 months.
The costs of these incidents can also be significant. Statistics Canada’s most recent survey on the topic found that Canadian businesses spent roughly $1.2 billion recovering from cybersecurity incidents in 2023, nearly double the amount reported in 2021.
Cyber for Startups is designed to make security an early decision for founders, before growth turns it into a more expensive one.
“I want founders to leave understanding that they don’t need to have everything figured out on day one, but they do need a plan,” Finlay said. “Cybersecurity doesn’t have to be overwhelming or prohibitively expensive. It’s about understanding your risks, making informed decisions, and taking practical steps as your business grows. That’s exactly what we’re trying to help startups do through this program.”
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Build security into your startup from the start. Apply for the next cohort of Cyber for Startups.
Feature image courtesy Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst.