CORNWALL, Ontario – Local entrepreneurs Shannon Ferguson and Kris McCarthy are seeing their company, FanSaves, grow both within and outside the Cornwall community.
FanSaves is an app that allows users to find great deals with local businesses while supporting and following their favourite sports teams.
Shannon and Kris have been accepted into the Northumberland Community Futures Development Corporation (CFDC)’s N1M program, a seed funding program and cohort designed to help companies get to the next level.
The N1M program offers to fund start-up businesses with as much as $30,000 if the company can match half of the total. Thanks to support from the Counties CFDC, FanSaves was able to meet their funding goal for the program. Both McCarthy and Ferguson said that receiving support from their local CFDC in Cornwall meant a lot.
“Even though this program is coming from Northumberland, it is helping us to grow locally,” said Ferguson.
In addition to the matching grant, the N1M program also provides workshops and mentorships for entrepreneurs.
“The mentoring is really going to help and gets our name out side of the region we’re in now,” said Ferguson.
The grant that FanSaves will receive from the program will be used for development updates to their app, marketing and hiring an employee.
Shannon and Kris have been invited to Coburg to participate in a innovation and customer acquisition seminar for tech startups. They are also one of only a few entrepreneurs to be invited to meet Kim Rudd, MP for Northumberland—Peterborough South and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources.
“We want to get the FanSaves name into corridor cities like Coburg,” said Ferguson. “It is a building block as we scale.”
FanSaves is taking part in other entrepreneurship programs across the region including InvestOttawa, an Ottawa based accelerator program.
“Being a part of these accelerators and cohorts is helping us show that we are growing,” said McCarthy.
FanSaves recently launched a new version of their app, and they now have 10 sports teams featured.
