Strategy Session Intake

About your company

Let's start with the basics

This takes about 7 minutes. Your answers go directly to your advisor before the call — the more specific you are, the more prepared they'll be.

First name

Required

Last name

Required

Work email

Valid email required

Your role

Required

Company name

Required

Website (optional)

Year founded

Required

Province

Required

Corporation type

CCPC = a private company incorporated in Canada, owned by Canadian residents. Most Canadian startups and small businesses are CCPCs. If you're not sure, you probably are one — select "Not sure" and your advisor will confirm.

Required

Who owns the company? (CCPC eligibility check)

If it's just you (or you and a co-founder), select "100% Canadian individuals." This matters because CCPC status affects your SR&ED credit rate — 35% refundable vs 15% non-refundable.

Required

Full-time employees

Required

Annual revenue

Required

Fiscal year end (month)

This is the last month of your financial year. Most small companies use December (calendar year). If you're not sure, check with your accountant or select December — your advisor will confirm. This matters because SR&ED must be filed within 18 months of your fiscal year end.

Required

Current cash runway

How many months can you operate at current burn before running out of cash? If you're profitable or bootstrapped, select "24+ months / profitable." This helps your advisor sequence programs by cash flow urgency — IRAP pays monthly, SR&ED pays at year-end.

Required

Your R&D work

Tell us about your technical work

Be specific — generic answers make it hard for your advisor to prepare. There are no wrong answers here.

Describe the core technical problem you're trying to solve (be specific)

0/1000

Write this the way you'd explain it to an engineer, not an investor. Technical obstacles score far better with CRA than product descriptions. Mention what you tried and why it didn't work.

Please describe your R&D work (min. 80 characters)

What best describes the nature of your technical work? (select all that apply)

Developing novel algorithms or models

New architectures, training approaches, or methods not found in literature

Fine-tuning or adapting existing models

Taking foundation models and adapting them for specific domains or constraints

Novel system integration or architecture

Combining components in ways that create new technical challenges

Data pipeline or infrastructure innovation

Novel approaches to data collection, labeling, or processing at scale

Hardware-software co-development

Custom silicon, edge deployment, or embedded AI systems

Applied research in a scientific domain

Using AI/ML to advance knowledge in life sciences, materials, climate, etc.

Estimated annual R&D spend (salaries + contractors + compute)

Required

Annual compute / cloud spend (GPU, cloud, etc.)

Required

R&D team size (include founders doing technical work)

Required

Where is R&D work performed?

Required

Do you use contractors or subcontractors for R&D work?

No — all R&D work is done by employees

Yes — Canadian contractors only

Arms-length Canadian subcontractors may qualify for SR&ED at 80% of cost

Yes — some or all are foreign contractors

Non-Canadian subcontractor costs are generally not eligible for SR&ED

Mix of Canadian and foreign contractors

Primary sector

Required

IP & commercialization

Ownership, IP, and market strategy

Some programs — particularly Scale AI and FedDev — score heavily on IP ownership and Canadian economic benefit. Your answers here shape which programs make sense to pursue.

Who owns the IP your company creates?

Our company owns all IP outright

Standard for most early-stage tech companies

Shared with a customer, partner, or university

Joint development arrangements — common in enterprise and academic partnerships

We license IP to customers — don't transfer ownership

SaaS model; customers get usage rights, not the underlying IP

Work-for-hire — the client owns what we build

Common in services, consulting, or contract R&D arrangements

It's complicated / not yet determined

What is your primary commercialization model?

Required

How many net new Canadian jobs do you project creating in the next 2 years?

Required

Do you have existing partnerships with large Canadian companies or institutions? (optional)

0/400

Scale AI requires a consortium — at least one large enterprise partner. FedDev scores partnership depth heavily. Even informal pilots count — mention them.

Funding history

What have you claimed or tried before?

Knowing what you've already accessed — and what's failed — tells your advisor exactly where the gaps are.

Which programs have you accessed or attempted? (select all that apply)

SR&ED — filed at least one claim

Scientific Research & Experimental Development tax credit with CRA

SR&ED — looked into it but haven't filed

Assessed eligibility or spoke to a consultant but no claim filed yet

NRC IRAP — active or past funding

Working with or previously worked with an Industrial Technology Advisor

NRC IRAP — contacted them, didn't proceed

Spoke to an ITA or the contact centre but no funding received

Scale AI — applied or received funding

Submitted an EOI or full application to Scale AI supercluster

FedDev Ontario

BSP or RTRI stream — applied or received contribution

AI Compute Access Fund

Applied in the July 2025 round or monitoring for new intakes

None — this is our first time looking at government funding

Have you worked with an SR&ED consultant before?

Required

Has CRA ever reviewed or audited your SR&ED claims?

Required

How would you describe your current R&D documentation? *

Select one — your advisor uses this to assess SR&ED audit risk before the call.

Strong — git commits, Jira tickets, time tracking in place

Contemporaneous records exist from day one of R&D work

Partial — some records but not systematic

Notes and commits exist but not consistently tracked or labeled

Weak — mostly in people's heads or informal Slack threads

Would struggle to reconstruct a timeline of technical decisions

None — R&D hasn't started yet

Planning stage; want to set up systems correctly from the start

What has most held you back from accessing funding so far? (optional — be honest)

Not sure if we actually qualify

Worried our work doesn't meet the technical bar

Haven't had time to figure it out

Funding research keeps getting deprioritized against product work

Had a bad experience with a consultant or application

Previous attempt didn't go well — skeptical about the process

Documentation isn't strong enough

Know we should have been tracking more carefully

Didn't know these programs existed

Just starting to learn about the funding landscape

Nothing — actively pursuing now

SR&ED eligibility depth

A few questions to assess SR&ED fit

SR&ED is the highest-value program for most companies. If you're new to this, don't worry — answer as best you can and your advisor will fill in the gaps. There are no wrong answers.

Describe the specific technological uncertainty your team faced (or faces now)

0/800

SR&ED requires that the uncertainty be technological — not business, market, or financial. It must have been unclear to competent professionals in the field whether or how a specific technical result was achievable.

Please describe the technical uncertainty (min. 50 characters)

Did your team form and test hypotheses? (systematic investigation requirement)

Yes — we documented experiments, tested hypotheses, drew conclusions

Clear experimental design with recorded outcomes; strong SR&ED position

Yes — informally, but not always written down

Work was systematic but documentation is inconsistent

Mostly trial and error — we iterated until it worked

May need to reconstruct the systematic narrative for CRA

R&D hasn't started yet

How many fiscal years of R&D activity is potentially claimable?

Required

What % of your technical team's time is on qualifying R&D?

Required

What makes your technical approach different from what's publicly available? (optional but important)

0/600

CRA's Science Advisors look for advancement beyond what's publicly known. If there's existing literature, explain why it doesn't solve your specific problem.

Your goals

What do you need from this session?

Two open questions and your priorities. Your advisor reads these first.

What's your biggest uncertainty about government funding right now?

0/600

Please share your main uncertainty (min. 30 characters)

What would make this session a success for you?

0/400

Please describe your expected outcome (min. 20 characters)

What matters most right now?

Getting cash as fast as possible

Runway is tight — speed matters more than maximizing total value

Maximizing total funding over the next 12–24 months

Runway is fine — want to build the best long-term funding stack

Understanding one specific program deeply

Already know what I want to pursue — need help executing it correctly

Getting a full picture first — then deciding

New to this space — want to understand options before committing to anything

How soon are you looking to act?

Required

What happens next: Your advisor reviews this intake before your call. You'll receive a calendar link immediately after submitting. Sessions are 30 minutes — come ready to confirm or correct the program recommendations your advisor will have already prepared.