How much of the R&D your team is already doing could qualify for funding? For Canadian SaaS founders, the answer might be more than they think. Speaking with SAAS NORTH AI, Jude Brown, Co-Founder of SRED.ca, challenged common misconceptions about Canada's Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) program, explained where AI-assisted development fits in and shared a simple habit that could help founders uncover overlooked opportunities.

An AI feature can work as intended and still leave customers doing much of the same work. Meanwhile, the company has taken on another product to maintain, support and pay for. Milen Kohli, Director of Growth at Unicorne Cloud, suggests a useful test: would customers notice if you took it away? Speaking with SAAS NORTH AI, he shared how to spot worthwhile opportunities, design experiments that test the hard questions and account for the people and data behind AI adoption.

Defence has quickly become one of Canadian tech’s biggest conversations. For Samuel Witherspoon, CEO and Co-Founder of Anvil, that creates a significant opportunity for technology companies willing to understand the market they are entering. Sam has spent a decade building Anvil in defence, giving him a perspective that predates much of the attention now flowing into the sector. Speaking with SAAS NORTH AI ahead of DEPLOY, he shared what growing interest means for founders, how to identify genuine capability gaps and why the strongest opportunities start with understanding the customer.

Two founders walk into SAAS NORTH AI. No, this isn’t the start of a bad joke. One is building an early-stage AI-SaaS company and figuring out how to scale it. The other is wondering whether technology built for commercial customers could solve problems in defence. They have the same pass and two days in Ottawa. What they do with them depends on the questions they bring into the room.

Canada’s defence build-out is creating an opportunity that reaches well beyond traditional defence companies. Software, AI, autonomy and cyber are becoming part of the country’s sovereign capability, and some of the technology Canada needs may already be under development inside its startup ecosystem. That creates a question for our community: could defence be a market for what you’re already building? It’s one of the reasons we launched DEPLOY, a new one-day summit taking place November 5, Day 2 of SAAS NORTH AI.

AI is helping users reach value faster, while making product-led growth more expensive, pricing less straightforward and differentiation harder to defend. During a recent SAAS NORTH discussion moderated by Shane McLean of LaBarge Weinstein, Wes Bush of ProductLed, Monique Moran of Growth Assembly and Alvaro Pombo of TrueContext explored what happens when AI becomes part of the PLG model. Months later, those questions are becoming harder for SaaS companies to avoid.

Growth conversations often begin with capital, though investors are only part of the picture. Non-dilutive funding such as grants increasingly plays a role in how growing companies finance hiring, product development and expansion. Speaking with SAAS NORTH, Chelsey Fawcett, CEO of Grant Solutions Canada, shared why grant readiness increasingly resembles investor readiness and why preparation has become a strategic advantage long before an application is ever written.

Growth conversations often begin with capital, though investors are only part of the picture. Non-dilutive funding such as grants increasingly plays a role in how growing companies finance hiring, product development and expansion. Speaking with SAAS NORTH, Chelsey Fawcett, CEO of Grant Solutions Canada, shared why grant readiness increasingly resembles investor readiness and why preparation has become a strategic advantage long before an application is ever written.

When Evan Solomon, Canada’s first Minister of AI and Digital Innovation, joined SAAS NORTH in late 2025, the conversation centered on a bigger question: could Canada move beyond AI research leadership and become a place where enduring AI companies are built? Months later, some early signals are beginning to emerge. New compute funding has been announced, infrastructure projects are moving into development and attention is starting to shift from ambition toward implementation. Whether that momentum turns into long-term advantage remains an open question.