Steve Apostolopoulos and Jason Sawyer – Two Robust and Innovative Entrepreneurs To Look Up To

CanadianSME sat down with Steve Apostolopoulos and Jason Sawyer, co-founders of Caary Capital, earlier this year to understand their vision for small and medium-sized businesses across Canada and get their thoughts regarding the future development of SMEs in Canada. We also talked about the present state of FinTech and how it can help in creating tremendous efficiencies for businesses in the coming years. Steve and Jason shared the purpose behind launching Caary and how they are helping SMEs in Canada in procuring the capital they need. We also talked throughout the interview about the roadblocks for SMEs in getting credit. Together, we explore Steve and Jason’s journey and hear their advice for startups of today. 

Jason Sawyer is the Co-Founder of Caary Capital and a veteran of the alternative investment business. Currently, Jason is the General Manager of Access Alternative Group S.A., a Nassau, Bahamas-based venture investment and advisory firm that has led and maintains investments in early-stage software, fintech, clean energy, natural resource, and health & fitness, and consumer product companies.

Steve Apostolopoulos is Co-Founder of Caary Capital, Managing Partner of Triple Group of Companies and Co-Founder and Chief Development Officer of Triple Properties, a privately-owned real estate investment, development, asset management and leasing company.  Steve is also the founder of Six Ventures Inc., a private equity and venture investment company.

Jason: Our vision for the sector is why we started Caary. We want SMEs to thrive. While it’s been a very challenging couple of years, I believe the sector will be even more dynamic in the future.  There has been a lot of contemplation by budding entrepreneurs over the last two years – about how they view their roles and new ideas emerging. I expect we will now get to see the execution of these big ideas from a more diverse set of entrepreneurs, including more women-owned businesses.

Steve: Not to mention businesses have learned how to be more agile and resilient as the world delivered these twists and turns throughout the pandemic. Many SMEs went digital and that accelerated change is likely to inspire even more innovation over the coming years.   

Jason: Fintech’s progression and innovation have been largely focused on the consumer space until recently. That’s due to a deep reliance on a concentration of large financial institutions in Canada. In the last couple of years, there has been a global focus on fintech and it’s become, by far, the most investable space in the VC universe. As a result, Canadians and Canadian businesses are starting to take note. They are seeing their peers in other jurisdictions benefit from better fintech products and services and they are starting to turn their heads towards the possibility that there is more out there than what traditional financial institutions can offer.   

Alongside that, fintech has become laser-focused on the business environment and the pain points that every business – from a startup to a fully functional, profitable, mid-size business -encounters. We expect to see fintech create tremendous efficiencies for businesses from those advancements over the next five years. 

Steve: We are both entrepreneurs and we saw firsthand the barriers facing small businesses when it comes to accessing credit. We saw the inability, inefficiency and unwillingness of financial institutions to support them. And we saw a massive unmet need in the market that we could do something about. 

Caary’s aim is to finally give the 1.2 million SMEs in Canada the credit they deserve. We are delivering easy, accessible credit with no personal guarantees or credit checks required and no-fee physical and virtual cards, which SMEs can easily issue to their staff or dedicate to vendors. We are also simplifying expense and spend management for them, with a progressive financial platform that gives them control and visibility over card issuance, receipt capture and accounting integration. The time savings derived from this are enormous.

It’s a huge step forward for SMEs. In fact, we are starting to hear from large businesses who want it too. 

Jason: Credit is quite often not readily available to SMEs. If it is available for an SME’s specific circumstances, it takes a lot to track it down, tremendous time to apply and process applications ultimately require a personal guarantee anyway and after all of that, it’s expensive. It’s something that, without question, slows small businesses down. 

Credit – access to capital – is a critical component of any entrepreneurial venture regardless of stage and it’s the fuel that drives innovation and growth. The absence of accessible risk-priced credit is a significant and unnecessary obstacle for Canadian SMEs.

Steve: Traditional financial institutions haven’t known where to put SMEs. They don’t fit in their commercial business. They don’t fit in the personal side of their business. And they’ve never refined that. Their expectations of an SME – to have a corporate credit history that is telling of their ability to take on credit – are unrealistic. So, they rely on personal guarantees, which leaves small business owners carrying risks that really should be the burden of the business. 

Jason: I would add that Canada’s large financial institutions are, more often than not, very disconnected from the entrepreneurial experience. It’s been 150 years since these institutions have been entrepreneurs themselves and had to live what SMEs live every day. They are not properly crafting products that meet the needs of this constituency, utilizing the vast array of modern, digital tools and data points to assess risk and properly adjudicate credit decisions for worthy businesses. 

Jason: The leading component of our platform is the Carry business Mastercard. When an SME applies for a corporate card, we look at them differently than a traditional financial institution would. We look at their corporate tenure, cash on hand, historical business cash flow, any available credit history, industry/sector trends and growth, all in a seamless digital process that takes minutes. Through this proprietary process, we gain a comprehensive view of their ability to utilize credit and service debt, which usually means we are able to extend more credit that would otherwise be made available to them.

From there, we build a relationship. We get to know our customers so we can deploy capital in other forms, like revolving or installment loans, and in ways that are most helpful to them.

Steve: Get signed up for Caary as quickly as you can. The demand for what we are doing in Canada was overwhelming before we built the product. Participate with us in shaping the future of SME credit, payments and expense management. Let’s get to know each other, work together and, in a short period of time, you’re going to have access to – not just credit – but other types of lending products. You’ll find that Caary is going to be a one-stop shop for credit, payments, reconciliation and more. As your business evolves, we will grow with you.

CanadianSME

With an aim to contribute to the development of Canada’s Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s), Cmarketing Inc is a potential marketing agency and a boutique business management company progressing rapidly in its scope. By acknowledging a firm reliance of the Canadian economy over its SMEs, the agency has resolved to launch a magazine, the pure focus of which will be the furtherance of Canadian SMEs, and to assist their progress with the scheduled token of enlightenment via the magazine’s pertinent content.

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