Paystone lands on top of Canadian tech firm list

Paystone has been named to the inaugural Team True North List spotlighting high-performing Canadian tech firms tracking to $1 billion in annual revenue

Photo: Paystone CFO, Abdullah Saab, and CEO, Tarique Al-Ansari (file photo)

LONDON FINTECH FIRM Paystone has landed a spot on the inaugural Team True North List, a designation that they are among the companies with “the highest probability of reaching $1 billion in annual revenue.”

The list is published by Waterloo-based Communitech, a regional accelerator that aims to help tech firms tap capital and talent. The list is meant to highlight fast-growing companies in the Canadian innovation economy and comprises 35 firms in total, which they say represent “the one per cent of highest-performing global private companies in Canada.”

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Paystone, which has been on an acquisition and growth tear over the past two years, is the only London company named on the list, which includes companies like Clutch, FreshBooks and Flexiti.

“Why did we form Team True North?” reads the list’s website. “Because it is Canada’s time ― this is the best place on the planet to work in tech, invest in tech and build amazing things.” Placement on the list is based on numbers crunched by data science company Two Sigma and growth modelling by Communitech.

“Many founders aspire to achieve the level of scale that allows them to build a billion-dollar company,” says Tarique Al-Ansari, Paystone’s CEO. “Making it on this list is a true testament to Paystone’s potential. We’re very honoured to be listed on Team True North among other great Canadian companies and are even more excited for Paystone’s future.”

The list looks to build the profile of Canada’s tech sector, in which interest has been heating up. In March of this year, Toronto was identified as the third-largest tech hub in North America ― a “quietly booming tech town,” as the New York Times put it. Many global tech companies, like Twitter and Facebook, have expanded their investment in Canada and grown their workforces here, in addition to some homegrown unicorns like Shopify.

The Team True North list is hoping to identify and pump up companies that might soon achieve that “unicorn” status. (Paystone has not been shy about chasing that $1 billion milestone. “We can be a global business out of London, Ontario ― why not?” Al-Ansari said in a London Inc. September 2021 profile.)

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“Team True North confirms that Canada ― with its diverse set of best-in-class firms from coast-to-coast ― is well on its way to becoming the world’s top tech ecosystem,” says Chris Albinson, CEO and president at Communitech. “These companies have the highest probability of achieving billion-dollar status not only because of their impressive growth rates, but also their unwavering commitment to building trust into technology, which gives Canada a distinct global advantage.”

“I am confident that London and Southwestern Ontario companies will continue to be named to this extraordinary list, as I know first-hand the impact of our regional ecosystem and its dedication to the world’s tech ecosystem,” adds Christina Fox, CEO of TechAlliance of Southwestern Ontario. “We celebrate this accomplishment proudly for our region and for our good friend Tarique and his team at Paystone.” Kieran Delamont