Business Grants for Technology Entrepreneurs

22/03/2022

Government of Canada Government of Canada

The Boost Your Business Technology grants offers support to Canadian-owned small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) who want to adopt new digital technologies.

Eligible businesses will have access to a marketplace of digital adoption experts to help them develop a digital adoption plan tailored to their needs.

Eligible businesses can leverage the grant to pay for the services of a digital advisor. These advisors will work with companies to recommend digital pathways and strategies that will help them achieve their business goals and increase their competitiveness in the digital economy.

The grant covers up to 90% of the eligible cost of retaining the services of a digital advisor, up to a maximum grant value of $15,000 per SME, to develop a digital adoption plan.

Businesses also have the opportunity to secure a 0% interest loan from the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) to facilitate the acquisition of new technology. In addition, applicants can leverage the help of talented post-secondary students and recent graduates through subsidized work placements.

Eligibility:

Before applying, your business must meet all of the following eligibility criteria:

Be incorporated federally or provincially, or be a Canadian resident sole proprietor
Be a for-profit, privately owned business
Have between 1 – 499 full time equivalent employees
Have at least $500,000 of annual revenues in one of the previous three tax years

Only an owner or a director (listed in the articles of incorporation) can complete the application form, and the business must meet all eligibility criteria.

You will be asked to provide basic information in the initial application
You will be asked to assess your business’ digital readiness by completing a digital needs assessment
- The digital needs assessment tool will generate a report outlining your company’s digital maturity and compare it to an industry-specific benchmark. You may share this report with your digital advisor later in the process
Once you’ve completed your digital needs assessment, you will be able to find a digital advisor to develop your digital adoption plan
- You will access CDAP’s Digital Advisor Marketplace and select a digital advisor you would like to partner with to develop your digital adoption plan.
- You and your digital advisor will then agree on the terms of work, and final cost for creating the digital adoption plan.
- When your digital advisor has completed your digital adoption plan, you will then submit it to process the grant payment.

Consult the program guide to read through the detailed terms and conditions of the program

Digital Needs Assessment

Evaluate your digital maturity

The first step in helping your business thrive in a changing business landscape. Assessing your business maturity is an important step to help identify where your business stands in terms of digital advancement.

Reasons to assess your digital maturity

Identify your current digital capabilities and needs
Define your digital roadmap
Discover potential improvements
Evaluate and prioritize investments

Fast Track

Have you already participated in a digital adoption program?

If so, you could benefit from our fast-track option, and if your existing plan is approved, you’ll be eligible to apply for up to $100K zero interest loan from BDC.

If your plan was created by one of the programs below within the last 12 months, you may be eligible.

We recognize the following programs as equivalents:

Programme Audit Industrie 4.0 (in French only)
Digital Boost 2.0
Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency: Digital Acceleration Pilot

If you have a plan in hand from one of the programs above, but you feel like you need more expert advice in one or more areas, you may be eligible for a grant to continue the work you’ve already taken on.

To be considered you must:

Meet all program eligibility requirements
Upon completion of the updated plan, provide a copy of the initial digital adoption plan used to create your revised plan
Work with a digital advisor that is recognized by CDAP

CDAP is continuously identifying equivalent digital adoption programs across the country and will add them to the list of approved programs on an ongoing basis. If you would like to identify a digital adoption program for CDAP to assess, contact us.

Zero interest loan from BDC
You’re ready to move forward on your digital adoption plan but you may not have the necessary cashflow to implement the recommendations you received? BDC can help you.

Financing you can use to implement your digital adoption plan
Affordable and convenient
Up to $100,000 loan
0% interest loan
Online application
Eligibility
Business revenues between $500,000 and below $5M: you can request a loan between $25,000 and $50,000
Business revenues $5M and more: you can request a loan between $25,000 and $100,000
Flexible terms
5-year term with 12-months capital postponement (total of 6 years)
No fees
Convenient application deadline
You have 1 year from the completion of your approved digital adoption plan to make a loan request.
Application
Your business meets one of these two scenarios. You’ve completed a digital adoption plan:

under another recognized digital adoption program and submitted it to ISED
as part of the CDAP program and you received disbursement of your grant
Note: you can only access this application form via the unique link ISED will provide you.

Next steps for the loan request
Once you have asked ISED to qualify your eligibility under the program and received an email from ISED with your unique link, you will get access to complete an online form on bdc.ca to make your loan request.

Note: Your business must also meet BDC creditworthiness requirements to obtain financing. Certain conditions apply.

Once you have completed the BDC application form, you will receive a notification from BDC with the status of your loan request.

Funded work placements will be an integral part of the Boost Your Business Technology grant. Students or recent graduates can be hired by firms undertaking digital transformation to help businesses achieve their digital adoption goals.

Businesses will receive a wage subsidy up to $7,300 to hire talent through the funded work placement.

Sign-up to our newsfeed to be notified when the funded work placement program feature will be open for SMEs to apply.