Welcome to Product for Founders, a newsletter for tech savvy and $ smart founders!

If you’re a builder navigating R&D, the Canadian SR&ED program and building AI products, this newsletter is for you! We send you practical tips to maximize ROI on R&D, technical strategy, infrastructure, and practical founder challenges - especially in the AI/ML space. One email twice a month.

PS - If you like what you read today, share it with your group! If you don't, unsubscribe - I'll miss you, but I understand.

What’s up for today?

Read time: 3 mins

• A New Canadian Govt. AI loan programs
• Can you get both SR&ED and this loan?

​

What is the RAII program?

Stands for Regional Artificial Intelligence Initiative

A Govt. interest free loans for AI adoption or AI product commercialization

Are there Key Dates?

Application deadline 20 Dec 2024

What are the details?

I’m covering the program for Ontario-only. However, the $ values do differ by province.

​Here's a spreadsheet link of the data below.

Financial Considerations

• Documentation to show ability to repay the loan
• Only costs incurred after application deadline count
• If you’re pre-revenue, you cannot use the following for project financing proof (details here)
  • forecasted revenue
  • In-kind contributions and cash from forecasted revenue

​

The official program page

Deep dive into the programs here.

​

SR&ED vs this loan

Now, you could apply for both, but…

• $ that you receive from the loan, will not be eligible for SR&ED
• Neither is a grant i.e., free money, but
  • SR&ED $ are retrospective i.e., you spend $ doing research and you get a portion of it back after your fiscal year ends.
  • RAII loan $ are also retrospective
    • It works in a cost sharing model i.e., you finish spending $x, and then the loan will pitch in a loan amount.

Bottom Line: RAII in Ontario offers a total of $50M. Given the per project caps (see table above), and SMB definition (<500 employees) - this leaves room for the Ms in SMBs to grab larger portions of RAII. In my opinion, this leaves less for smaller businesses.

​

If you have any questions about SR&ED or the RAII loan program, reach out - I’m always happy to chat!

​