> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://upnext.world/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Canada Fintech Forum 2026: Fireraven Takes the Pitch Battle - URL: https://upnext.world/canada-fintech-forum-2026-pitch-battle/ - Published: 2026-09-18T03:27:29.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-18T03:27:29.000Z - Description: Ten startups pitched to five of Canada's most active fintech investors in Montreal. Fireraven won with AI security for AI agents. But the real story was the thread running through the entire conference: what does speed cost in trust? - Author: Darryl Bandoro - Tags: UpNext World Tour, Canada Fintech Forum The 13th edition of Canada Fintech Forum returned to the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth in Montreal on September 14 and 15\. Two days of panels, meetings, and deal-making. Financial institutions, fintechs, investors, and public decision-makers, all in one room. And one idea kept surfacing across every session: financial services runs on people believing that when they move money, it actually gets where it is going and gets handled properly. That is the baseline. Everything else is layered on top. Open banking showed the tension clearly. The promise is speed. Move money faster, more easily, between more places. But the moment you ask someone to hand their bank password to a third-party app, you are spending down trust to get that speed. Stablecoins carry the same tension in a different spot. The utility is obvious: weekend settlement, reconciling accounts without waiting for banking hours, money moving on a schedule that matches how business actually happens. But then the question becomes whether you can trust the stablecoin itself. Canada is doing reasonably well on the regulatory side. That does not mean the question is answered. The Pitch Battle put these ideas in a room with ten startups and five of Canada's most active fintech investors. ## The Pitch Battle Winner ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/09/WhatsApp-Image-2026-09-15-at-15.09.41-1.jpeg) [Fireraven](https://fireraven.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI / Enterprise\] won the Pitch Battle at Canada Fintech Forum 2026\. The Montreal-based company builds a no-code platform for AI security and governance, working from a simple premise: every message going through every AI agent needs to be secure. As financial institutions rush to deploy AI tools, Fireraven gives them a way to set guardrails on large language models without writing code. Founded by JS Patenaude and rooted in Polytechnique Montréal's AI research ecosystem, the company is answering the question the whole conference kept asking. Can we trust the AI that is now writing and running financial infrastructure? ## The Pitch Battle Startups [Kavodax](https://kavodax.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Fintech / Blockchain\] builds blockchain-based cross-border payment infrastructure, including a CAD-backed stablecoin pegged one-to-one to Canadian dollars. Founded by Vaanu Thanesh, Kavodax pitched a specific number: $1.25 million lost annually for every $15 million routed through legacy cross-border rails. The company has processed over $10 million in transactions across 150+ countries, holds a FINTRAC Money Services Business license, and won CodeLaunch Canada 2025\. The stablecoin argument is simple. Weekend settlement, faster reconciliation, money that moves when the business needs it to. Whether the trust follows the utility is the open question Kavodax is betting it can answer. [Nezz](https://www.nezz.io/?ref=upnext.world) \[Fintech\] operates high-value transaction and escrow infrastructure for large purchases. The company reports a pipeline of roughly $300 million and has a letter of intent from a major manufacturer. The team includes former leaders from RBC, Interac, and Deloitte. Nezz banks through Wells Fargo via Priority and is led by Lopsii Olagoke. [BIASafe](https://biasafe.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[Fintech / AI\] offers a no-code quantitative portfolio management platform. Founded by Teric Greenan, the company has earned SOC 2 Type II certification and joined both the NVIDIA Inception and Google Cloud programs. BIASafe operates across Montreal, New York, and Casablanca. [Agnic.AI](https://agnic.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI / Enterprise\] is building payment infrastructure for AI agents. The company calls it a "trust layer for agentic commerce," letting autonomous software agents handle financial transactions securely. Ali Moghadam leads the team, which brings over 40 years of combined fintech experience. Agnic.AI runs on Solana and is positioning for a future where AI agents need their own payment rails. [OnGuardAI](https://getonguard.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[Cybersecurity\] detects scam calls in real time using AI, with a focus on protecting seniors from voice fraud. Richard Gotlieb's company launched in the U.S. market in August 2026\. Fraud is a direct attack on trust, and anything that reduces it is trust-building by another name. Contract-It, led by Ahmad Sobh, won two prizes at HEC Montréal's Gala révélations La base 2026, signaling early traction in the Quebec startup ecosystem. *Also in the Pitch Battle: Novalytics (Charly Bastard), Datacove.ai (Vivek Ghartan), and Coalesc (Anthony Uyende).* ## The Judges ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/09/WhatsApp-Image-2026-09-15-at-15.09.41--1--1.jpeg) The Pitch Battle panel brought together five investors and ecosystem leaders active in Canadian fintech: Karim Gillani (Luge Capital), Ricky Lai (Portage Ventures), Simon Dandavino (Station Fintech), Adriana Vega (Fintechs Canada), and Jan Christopher Arp (Holt Accelerator). ## Why It Matters for the UpNext Network The pattern across the day was consistent. Open banking, stablecoins, AI security. Every one of these technologies is trying to buy speed or convenience. And every one of them has to answer for what it costs in trust to get there. Half the Pitch Battle companies were applying AI to compliance, security, or fraud. The next wave of Canadian fintech looks less like consumer apps and more like infrastructure for institutions trying to deploy new technology without breaking the thing the whole system depends on.