🎯Funding rounds closing soon, alumni features & FrontFundr Pitch Day

🔔 Your campaign updates feed

🍸Valley of Mother of God Gin goes to Tokyo

Valley of Mother of God Gin (VMG) receives warm support from the Canadian Trade Commission in Tokyo. They make their international debut at Gin Bar Copain, an honour for Canadian gin to be a part of Japan’s vibrant cocktail community.

Invest in VMG | $612K Raised | 82% of target

👥 Fanbase’s round closes in 2 weeks

Fanbase is built to support the rapid rise of the creator economy. With the creator economy valued at over $1 trillion, Fanbase offers investors a timely opportunity before the round closes on December 15.

Invest in Fanbase | $14M Raised | 83% of target

🍻Collective Arts shares their global creative journey

Collective Arts has grown from a Canadian start-up into a global creative movement. A short video highlights how its culture and creator community uniquely position it for meaningful international growth.

Invest in Collective Arts | $235K Raised | 47% of target

👟Hettas was featured on CBC

Hettas was featured on CBC showcasing their work with SFU RunLab. With demand for women’s athletic equipment rising, Hettas gives investors an opportunity to get involved before the round closes on December 15.

Invest in Hettas | $114K Raised | 46% of target

🔔 Alumni updates

🔵 joni co-founders, Jayesh Vekariya and Linda Biggs, welcomes BC Premier, David Eby, to their headquarter in Victoria to share with him their work behind the scenes.

⚡VoltSafe is featured in Port Strategy! It’s redefining marina shore power making marinas safer, smarter, and easier to manage.

🪟RYSE recently hosted their 2025 Demo Day, showcasing the next step of smart home automation and what they have been building behind the scenes at RYSE.

🤔 What’s on our minds

🛍️ Shopify Cracks Down on Sales Team Misconduct

Earlier this week, Shopify, the Ottawa-based e-commerce giant, confirmed it has terminated less than 10 sales staff after finding they falsified merchant revenue projections to inflate their commissions.

🧐 What Happened And Why It Matters

The issue began when Shopify introduced a new commission system that paid sales staff based on projected merchant revenue instead of real performance. This led a small group to inflate the expected annual sales of new merchants by “tens of millions of dollars” to earn a bigger commission.

Shopify launched an internal review after noticing many new merchants were not meeting the sales numbers promised by the sales team. The company fired the employees involved, tightened oversight of sales projections, and updated its internal checks. According to company spokesperson Ben McConaghy, the misconduct didn’t affect Shopify’s financial results and that the matter is now closed.

💡 Why Stakeholders Should Pay Attention

• Merchants & sellers: The scandal shows that if commission-based pay is not closely monitored, it can lead to abuse and weaken trust in Shopify’s onboarding process.

• Investors: Even though Shopify says financials were not impacted, the incident highlights internal vulnerabilities that could pose risks for investors, especially in fast-growing tech companies.

• E-commerce market & peers: High growth targets paired with commission-heavy sales teams can create problems without strong oversight. Other companies may rethink how they structure their incentive systems.

📌 Final Thoughts

Shopify’s situation serves as a reminder that growth ambitions and incentive programs must be backed by strong internal controls. Even though only a few people were fired, the inflated “tens of millions” in projections shows how fast bad incentives can lead to serious issues. As e-commerce and SaaS companies grow, it is important to pay attention to how that growth is actually happening. Big revenue numbers alone do not guarantee that the business will stay healthy over time.

🎙️ Hear from our latest founder feature

Collective Arts: Fusing innovative beverages with emerging artists with Matthew Johnson

Q: What inspired the creation of Collective Arts?

A: The idea really came from a belief that creativity makes the world better. In the beverage industry, creativity was always in the liquid but not on the outside. Most labels were generic, following the same rules. We wanted to flip that by pairing world-class drinks with emerging artists and musicians. 

Q: What makes Collective Arts stand out in a crowded beverage market?

A: Collective Arts is a creative, community-driven movement. We have encouraged artistic collaboration by receiving nearly 40,000 art submissions, paying over $1 million directly to artists while allowing them to retain ownership rights. Their brand appeals especially to Gen Z consumers who seek purpose and culture alongside products.

Q: Looking back, are there a few standout moments in Collective Arts’ journey?

A: The first was our launch party at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. We had over 600 people show up, the walls covered in art, and for the first time, we saw beer drinkers reacting to this crazy idea we’d been working on. 

🎧 Want to listen to the full episode?

Spotify / YouTube / Apple

📌 FrontFundr Bulletin

🎤 FrontFundr December Pitch Day Event!

The FrontFundr community is invited to join our live Pitch Day on December 9th at 10 AM PST/ 1 PM EST. Featuring some of Canada’s most innovative companies currently raising capital on FrontFundr, including Don Sutton of Capital Direct, Malcolm Roberts of Foxglove Spirits, Oussama (Sam) Saoudi of KaleMart24 and August Biniaz of CPI Capital. Space is limited to 50 attendees, so be sure to reserve your spot today! 

Want to see what our Pitch Day looks like? Check out highlights from October!