Build It. Bill the Government.
Canadian grants and tax credits can cover 25–80% of your software development costs. Most businesses never find out — or miss the window. Thrive Creative helps you identify every dollar you’re eligible for before we write a line of code.
Your Build, Funded. We Know the Programs.
Indigenous-led organizations and nonprofits have access to more funding than almost any other segment in Canada. Thrive Creative helps you navigate every program you’re eligible for — and builds the technology that puts those funds to work.
You’ve been building on your own dime. You didn’t have to.
Most Canadian businesses pay for their software development out of operating budget. Some find SR&ED at tax time, claim a partial credit, and call it a win. Almost none of them know that at the time the project was scoped, they could have stacked SR&ED with a regional grant, an Indigenous-stream program, an AI adoption credit, or a training grant — and recovered a meaningful share of the spend before the first invoice landed.
The funding programs are real. They’re well-funded. They’re underused for one reason: they’re complicated to navigate, the eligibility windows are narrow, and the proposal work has to be done before the technical work starts. Most agencies can’t help. Most accountants only see SR&ED. The result is a market full of organizations who have been quietly self-financing work the government was prepared to subsidize.
Thrive maps the funding alongside the build. The cost question and the funding question are answered in the same conversation, by the same team, against the same scope.
This works for two kinds of organizations.
Alberta operational businesses with technical investment ahead of them.
Energy services, industrial, fulfillment, field operations, manufacturing — businesses that are about to invest in dispatch, ticketing, integrations, mobile field tools, AI workflow automation, or cloud migration. SR&ED, IEG, IRAP, ACAF, and Alberta Innovates programs are designed for exactly this kind of work, and the stacking opportunities are larger than most operators expect.
Indigenous-led organizations and nonprofits with technology gaps.
ISC, PrairiesCan Indigenous streams, CCAB partnership pathways, Alberta CIP, and corporate foundation grants from Microsoft, Google.org, and RBC Foundation are designed to fund exactly the technology work most nonprofits and Indigenous organizations need — intake, member services, registration, reporting, modernization. Most organizations qualify for more than one program.
Also a strong fit: Canadian SMBs with any R&D activity, companies adopting AI, and organizations going through digital modernization.
What’s actually available.
A short list of programs Thrive routinely sees stack against software builds. Most organizations qualify for more than one.
| Program | What it covers |
|---|---|
| SR&ED + Alberta IEG | Federal R&D tax credit plus Alberta Innovation Employment Grant. Stacks. Covers a meaningful share of qualifying engineering wages and contractor costs. |
| NRC IRAP | National Research Council technical and funding support for innovation projects with a research or development component. Direct subsidy, not a tax credit. |
| ACAF (Alberta Co-Applicant Fund) | Provincial funding for digital adoption, modernization, and technical capacity in Alberta-based businesses. |
| PrairiesCan Scale-Up & Innovation | Federal regional development funding for Prairie-based growth-stage businesses, including digital and technology investments. |
| ISC (Indigenous Services Canada) | Capacity, infrastructure, and digital projects for First Nations governments, organizations, and bands. |
| Alberta Innovates | Provincial innovation funding across multiple streams — digital, AI, clean tech, agri-food, and small business support. |
| Canada-Alberta Job Grant | Training and capacity development costs — including technical training and onboarding into new systems built as part of a project. |
Three steps. Most clients are surprised by step one.
Funding Assessment
A 45-minute conversation. You describe what you want to build and where the business is. We map the programs that fit, the stacking opportunity, and the timing windows that matter. Most organizations leave this conversation knowing about funding they didn’t know they were eligible for.
Funding Strategy & Proposal Support
A written document, credited to your build. We package the funding strategy as a flat-fee deliverable: which programs to pursue, in what order, with what supporting language, against the technical scope. The fee is credited toward the build itself when you proceed — you’re not paying twice.
Funded Build
Thrive builds the technology and works alongside your finance and grant teams to support the claims as the work progresses. Documentation, technical narratives, claim-support letters — produced as part of how we work, not as an extra service. Month-to-month, no lock-in.
We’re not a dev shop. We’re your engineering department.
Thrive’s Development Department as a Service (DDaaS) is a single fractional engagement that gives you engineering, design, cloud, AI, project management, and a fractional CTO — on a month-to-month retainer. No long-term contract. No agency runaround. The code is yours.
We embed. We sit in your meetings. We learn the operation, the funder, the constraints, and the people. We don’t come in with a product roadmap; we come in with questions, and we stay involved long enough for the technology to belong to the organization.
Funding is part of how we scope. The cost question and the funding question are answered together, by the same team, against the same scope. Most engagements are partially funded by the time the first sprint starts.
Your systems should fit your business. Most don’t — and the gap costs you more than you realize.
Calgary-based. Canadian data residency. Month-to-month — no lock-in. 50+ specialists across engineering, cloud, AI, and design.
We’ve done this before.
Two named cases below. Several more in flight.
Niitoiyis Family Support Society
Treaty 7 Indigenous-led family support organization. Thrive is rebuilding the registration, intake, and reporting infrastructure that supports their direct service work, with go-live planned for June 2026. Scoped, paced, and governed in partnership with the organization’s leadership.
Redline Energy Services
Two-year embedded engagement reconciling dispatch, field tickets, and billing into a single operational system of record. Double-bookings effectively eliminated, billing cycle closes in days instead of weeks, field disputes rare and defensible. Funding stack included R&D tax credits and provincial innovation programs.
Additional proof points in these segments (link as case studies are published):
- Industrial fulfillment — warehouse-to-billing reconciliation rebuilt around a single operational system of record.
- Field services — mobile ticketing and dispatch unified for crews working out of three depots.
- E-waste / recycling logistics — intake, weighing, and downstream reporting connected end-to-end.
- Outreach operations — canvasser, route, and reporting tooling consolidated and modernized.
Questions we actually get asked.
How much of our build is realistically going to be funded?
Depends on the program mix and the work itself. SR&ED + IEG alone covers a meaningful share of qualifying engineering wages. Stack with a regional or sector-specific program and the recovered share grows. Indigenous-stream programs can cover more. We give you a real number after the Funding Assessment, against your scope.
Do you write the proposals, or do we?
Thrive does the technical and project narrative work. Your team supplies business and financial inputs. The relationship with the funder stays with the organization. The Funding Strategy & Proposal Support deliverable in step 02 is a written document you can use to drive the applications — with us if you want, without us if you don’t.
Can we apply for funding and then go to a different developer?
Yes. The funding strategy is yours. The technical scope is yours. We’d rather you build with us, but we don’t lock you in. The fee for step 02 is credited if you proceed with us; it’s still yours either way.
How long does the funding process take?
Some programs (like SR&ED) are claimed at year-end and don’t gate the start of work. Others (IRAP, ACAF, ISC, Alberta Innovates streams) require approval before the work begins. We sequence the build so unfunded portions can start while funded portions wait for approval — you don’t have to stop the operation to wait on a grant.
What if we’ve already started the build?
Some programs are retroactive. Some aren’t. The Funding Assessment will tell you exactly what’s still recoverable and what isn’t, against the work you’ve already done.
Find out what your build actually costs.
Tell us a little about what you want to build. We’ll come back within one business day with a 45-minute conversation, the programs we’d map against the work, and a real picture of how much of the spend is recoverable.
Thanks — we’ll be in touch.
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