Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
July 2, 2025

The Canadian retail trading ecosystem has witnessed incredible growth in the last decade, but there’s still time for you to make your mark in the highly competitive and cut-throat space. There are lots of strategies, but the one you choose should be built on a foundation featuring TradingView and MetaTrader. Here are a handful of exciting features that will help you stand out as a Canadian retail trader. Are you ready? Let’s take a deep dive into features you can use to ensure success.
If you’re not using TradingView, you’re doing your investment dreams a disservice because this platform operates as a one-stop shop for everything you need to start and succeed as a retail assets trader. Every trader, from retailers investing $100 to whales investing more than $5 million, trusts and uses this forex trading app. Here are a few amazing features.
Charts are an essential lifeline to traders because they help you visualize things in ways you never thought possible. Use the right charts long enough and you’ll begin to think in charts and visualize things in graphs, bars, and pies. Few trading resources offer better charting support and infrastructure than TradingView. You’re getting access to the best-created, most relevant data in a way that makes sense to everyone from new investors to veteran traders. You’re on your way to succeeding as a Canadian CFD investor when you have the most up-to-date and best0visualized data sets in the world thanks to Advanced Charting features on TradingView.

Growing as an assets trader is great, but imagine how much better it would be to go through your journey with thousands of like-minded people who are experiencing similar things. The social networking features available on TradingView expose you to a new world of possibilities. Social communities are often compromised by people who try to push fraudulent products, services, or events, which is why the community management processes on these platforms are always on point. Community managers are always on duty to ensure conversations are on point and mutual respect is adhered to.
New traders may be surprised to learn that multi-device functionality wasn’t a thing until recently. In the past, the user experiences of PC users and mobile users were very different; it felt like using two completely different products. TradingView was one of the first investment products that put in the effort to make experiences across different platforms similar and comparable.
Whether you’re a newbie or you’ve been trading online since the advent of the internet, MetaTrader is an inescapable brand, and odds are you’ve come across this exciting service. Here are three reasons why this service continues to grow and endure over years and “investment generations.”

The power of automation cannot be overstated when trading with platforms like MT4. Imagine being able to set parameters, kickstart trades, and go about your day. The most amazing thing about such a platform is that it works to accommodate your life and schedule. If you’re a retail trader who’s yet to embrace the power of automating your trades, you’re missing out on numerous positive experiences, not to mention advice from expert human advisors and specialized bots on how to approach certain trades. MT4 wins when you do, which is why the platform is committed to helping you overcome bottlenecks.
Trading on your terms is something many people never thought about until MetaTrader helped make it the norm in the industry. There are hundreds (sometimes thousands) of different analytics tools to choose from; you can pick and choose between them as you wish. The only thing stopping you is the size of your screen and the limits of your imagination. Customization also covers what you see because it’s now possible to change how different features appear on the screen and when you see them. The possibilities are endless.
Have you ever tried to integrate APis and found that your chosen service doesn’t support your chosen broker? If you’re an MT4 user, you’ll most likely not relate to this statement because few services come close to the quality and volume of broker integration like MetaTrader 4. It doesn’t matter where you live or where you’re trading from, you should be able to work with the broker of your choice.
Are you ready to take the trading and investment world by storm? The first step is learning how you can make the most of the features TradingView and MetaTrader 4 have to offer. You might be shocked by what you learn.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Acquisition | June 30, 2025

Image: Freepik AI
On June 30, 2025, Burnaby-based Canadian legaltech firm Clio announced that it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire U.S. firm vLex for $1 billion USD in cash and stock. This is the largest acquisition in Clio's history and one of the most significant software deals ever led by a Canadian company. The deal merges Clio's legal operating system with vLex's AI-powered research platform to create a unified and intelligent legal system.
The combined platform currently serves over 200,000 legal professionals and includes vLex’s multilingual legal database and its AI engine Vincent, already trusted by law firms, courts, and legal associations in more than 110 countries.
The deal is expected to close later in 2025, pending regulatory approvals. Clio was advised by Goldman Sachs, with legal support from Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, Wilson Sonsini, and Gowling WLG. vLex was advised by J.P. Morgan, with legal counsel from A&O Shearman and Uría Menéndez. See the vLex announcement
Clio’s system simplifies firm operations while vLex’s technology provides legal insight across jurisdictions. Together, imagine a legaltech platform that combines task management, research, drafting, and smart analysis all in one place. By uniting all of these functions, the platform can support small firm use cases all the way to enterprise workflows in a single system.
Jack Newton, CEO and founder of Clio, said this is the beginning of a new era for the company and the legal profession. It didn't happen overnight. For seventeen years Clio has built tools to help law firms run efficiently. Now, jointed with vLex, it can add intelligence that understands legal content. Newton explained this further in a conversation with LawNext.
The times are changing in legaltech. According to the Q2 2025 Emerging Tech SaaS Report from PitchBook (subscription required), vertical SaaS acquisitions have increased by over 40% this year. Companies are integrating domain specific AI into platforms that combine workflow with insight. Clio and vLex are now a clear example of that trend.
vLex’s Vincent AI is capable of analyzing legal documents, audio, and video, and it can also support legal theory testing and custom workflows. These capabilities are essential for trusted, high value use cases in regulated environments, and they are creating an entirely new category of intelligent legal infrastructure.
vLex is backed by Oakley Capital, a UK based private equity firm. Clio's deal is Oakley’s third major legaltech exit in the past two years, pointing to the growing maturity of legal intelligence platforms.
Canadian policymakers should take notice of what's possible when national tech companies are supported in scaling globally. It offers a template for other sectors from finance to insurance to healthcare where regulated services require trusted, explainable AI. The acquisition is showing how these platforms can work in practice across different levels of complexity and jurisdictions.
Clio's deal puts a Canadian company in a leading position in global legal AI, and offers a model for how other high trust sectors could follow. That is how intelligent systems based on the knowledge economy, trusted data, and applied AI are likely to impact professional services in the years to come.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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AI Agents | June 27, 2025

Image: Freepik/kjpargeter
On June 23, 2025, Quebec-based company Botpress CEO Sylvain Perron announced that they raised USD 25 million Series B financing to scale its infrastructure platform for autonomous AI agents. The round was led by OpenOcean, with participation from Decibel and Inovia Capital. The funds will expand Botpress’s global infrastructure, custom inference engine, secure execution systems, and developer tools designed to move agents from early demos into full production.
Botpress provides a developer-first platform that supports both no-code and full-code agent design. Its open core framework has already powered millions of agent executions in over 190 countries. This latest investment confirms the growing demand for reliable, professional agent tooling as businesses look towards autonomous systems to gain efficiency and competitive edge.
Botpress is developing, a long term reliable infrastructure layer that operates between large language models (LLMs) and business systems. This is the infrastructure that enables agents to run at scale and across industries, from fintech operations to enterprise customer support.
The platform includes:
As explained in How real-time agentic AI will boost fintechs, many financial services companies are adopting agents to automate onboarding, compliance, and customer interaction workflows. Botpress helps make these deployments feasible by offering runtime safety, memory, structured outputs, and continuous improvement tooling.
The company is also tackling the challenge of handling complex decisions across systems (reasoning at scale), a concept explored in How PhD-level AI agents will change financial services, where intelligent agents are expected to operate across complex processes with autonomy and accountability.
Its modular architecture complements the trend of more companies using external systems to control and guide what AI agents do like OpenAI’s Operator, discussed in OpenAI to launch Operator to redefine task automation, by offering developers control over how agents interact with APIs, data, and users in real-time.
Botpress's funding round means even more capital towards building the AI agent ecosystem. By focusing on infrastructure and developer experience, it is helping bring agents into regulated and critical environments.
For companies investing in AI systems that need to proactively 'act' (autonomously), and not just respond, Botpress capabilities offers a robust foundation for a wide array of solutions to support long term adoption and scale. As more companies adopt real-time agents, Canada's fintech sector has an opportunity to get ahead on infrastructure design and agent deployment.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Financial Planning | June 27, 2025
Image: Freepik/Rawpixel.com
On June 23, 2025, Winnipeg-based financial technology company, Conquest Planning, announced they had raised $80 million USD ($110 million CAD) Series B financing round led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives. The round also includes participation from Canapi Ventures, BDC Capital, Citi Ventures, TIAA Ventures, USAA, Portage, and BNY.
Founded in 2018, Conquest provides AI-powered financial planning software used by more than 1,000 organizations across Canada, including RBC, Manulife, Raymond James, and BNY Pershing. The company’s Strategic Advice Manager (SAM) platform has already generated over 1.5 million financial plans.
This new capital injection will fund Conquest’s expansion into the United States and United Kingdom, while accelerating the launch of two product innovations
This investment comes at a time when personalized financial advice is out of reach for many Canadians. NCFA’s recent review of financial planning gaps based on data from the Financial Conduct Authority unveils several underserved segments, including:
These segments often rely on informal advice, lack access to tailored planning tools, or simply avoid engaging with the financial system altogether. Conquest’s scalable and accessible tools have the potential to close some of these gaps.
The introduction of SAM Bytes aims to bring quality financial planning to families who are not currently served by human advisors. This is especially relevant for households navigating complex financial decisions, such as starting a business or expanding a family.
Demand is growing for platforms that provide affordable, real-time, and personalized advice built on real data and delivered in plain language. For NCFA members working on financial inclusion, wealth building, and life stage transitions, Conquest Planning is one to watch.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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