Founded 2014, reshaping Canadian investing from Toronto
Wealthsimple
Michael Katchen built a spreadsheet to help Silicon Valley colleagues manage their investments. The idea he took from that became one of Toronto's biggest fintech success stories.
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Wealthsimple was founded in September 2014 in Toronto by Michael Katchen, Brett Huneycutt and Rudy Adler. The idea traced to Katchen's time working in Silicon Valley, where he built a spreadsheet to help colleagues set up their own investment portfolios after a company acquisition — a tool that became the seed for a business built on making financial services accessible and easy to use.
Part of a growing fintech hub
In December 2015 the company merged with Canadian ShareOwner Investments, a Canadian broker-dealer, and by 2017 had expanded into the U.S. and U.K. markets. Wealthsimple's growth reflects Toronto's broader fintech sector, which the Toronto Region says employs about half of Canada's 60,000 fintech workers across more than 140 startups.
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