LowestRates.ca celebrates five years: A look at how we got here

LowestRates.ca started in a tiny office five years ago. The two co-founders, our current CEO Justin Thouin and now SEO consultant Cliff Ritter, had $150,000 they scraped together. The duo agreed early on that if their idea didn’t succeed and they ran out of their startup fund, that’d be it. Time to pack up and go home.

But the idea did succeed. The vision back then is still the same as it is today: buying financial products in Canada should be as simple as possible. 

Fast forward five years and we’ve just had our most successful year ever. We expanded our auto insurance quoter nationally in October, launching in Quebec and Atlantic Canada. In September, Profit named us to their STARTUP 50 list for the second year in a row. And EY nominated Justin as Entrepreneur of the Year for Ontario.

That initial $150,000 never ran out. There’s a clear appetite in Canada for companies that help simplify the financial process for Canadians. We’re all fed up, after all, with the extraordinarily high fees we have to pay to banks and insurance companies for simple services.

Turning five is a big deal for a startup. According to industry Canada, half of new small and mid-sized businesses in Canada fail before they ever get to be in business for half a decade.

So to celebrate the milestone, we’ve put together a timeline of our major milestones over the past five years. This was created by the LowestRates.ca team, many of whom have been here since the start.

We also like to say a big thank you to our customers, our partners, and all the team members of LowestRates.ca. We wouldn't be here without you.