News Pick – MaRS launches Toronto financial tech cluster – TS

Feb 18, 2015 “It is always smart to follow the money and MaRS wants to make it easier for tech entrepreneurs and financial services companies to work together.

On Tuesday evening, MaRS, a public-private partnership, announced a series of strategic partnerships that will create Canada’s first financial technology cluster. Citing the rise of many local financial tech (fintech) based startups, the fact that Canada’s financial sector is based here, and the interest of venture capitalists looking to identify new, high potential technologies, MaRS hopes to become the place that brings all three groups together.

“We have a financial sector that is globally recognized and sector delivers about $13 billion in benefits for Toronto and Canada,” said Adam Nanjee, lead for the fintech cluster at MaRS. “The thing is if you look at Toronto, where would the entrepreneurs go to get access to the financial institutions? Where would these institutions go to get access to these entrepreneurs? And where would the VCs (venture capitalists) go to find these entrepreneurs? There’s not a central place where all of these stakeholders can come and play. We are going to be making MaRS that central place.” ”