Keeping in the view the enthusiasm among innovative minds of the world, Canada’s government launched Start-up Visa program in 2013. This program allows budding entrepreneurs to launch their innovative startup in Canada after receiving support from designated organizations.

Benefits of this program

This unique visa program from federal government of Canada that comes with multiple benefits which include:

• Canada is the most tax competitive nation among G-7 countries, as per tax and advisory firm KPMG. This ensures that startups can easily flourish without worrying about heavy taxes from the government’s end.
• The Canadian environment is optimum for research & development (R&D) purposes associated with the business.
• The program offers Permanent Resident (PR) status to those entrepreneurs whose visa is accepted under this program.
• The Canada comes top amongst G-20 countries for doing business, as per Forbes magazine. This ensures high chances of success for budding entrepreneurs.
• Permanent residence status is not be impacted in case the business receives a failure.
• Entrepreneurs will experience high standard of living for them and their family while residing in Canada.

On the other hand, Canadian government gets the chance to increase employment in the country with exponential increase in the number of startups. Also, it will give a boost to the country’s economy.

Support needed from designated organizations

In order to approve start-up visa, an applicant needs to convince the designated organizations by showing potential of the business idea. The applicant needs to secure $200000 in the form of minimum investment from the designated venture capital funds. Also, applicants can secure $75000 as minimum investment from designated angel investor groups. The applicant can also receive acceptance from Canadian business incubators which are part of this program. The combined number of all these designated organizations is more than 50.

The applicant receives a Letter of Support from either of these designated organizations which is used in application process.

Other eligibility requirements

Other than receiving the Letter of Support from one of the organizations discussed above, there are also other requirements needed to receive this visa. The applicant needs to prove at least one year of education at post-secondary institute. Also, ability to communicate in English or French language along with possession of enough money to support him/her while establishing the startup needs to be proved by the applicants.

Some startups working under this program

Zeetl Inc. has been launched by immigrants from Ukraine Oleksandr Zadorozhnyi and Stanislav Korsei. Also, Shankar Raventhiran, Jaishankar Rajagopal and Anand Suriyanarayana Raja from India have launched Green Anthem Foods. These are some of the success stories of enthusiastic individuals getting benefits from this program.

With each passing year, the program is expected to gain more popularity across the globe.