The difference between them isn't merit. It's a map. A small club learned which door opens the next — and walked through all of them.
Of about 88,000 businesses that ever won federal funding, 71% won once and never returned. A 5% club that stacks programs across years holds roughly a fifth of all dollars; median total funding climbs from $15k with one program to $2.2M with ten or more — a 147× difference, and it usually starts with IRAP.
Seven in ten win once. Five percent win everything.
Sort every company by how often it has won, and the pyramid is brutal: a vast base of one-time winners, a thin spire that keeps coming back — and captures far more than its share.
How many years a company keeps winning
Number of companies, by the count of distinct years they've ever won. The drop-off is a cliff.
Each rung multiplies the money.
The ladder isn't a metaphor — it pays. Sort every company by how many different programs it has ever won, and the median total funding explodes: from $15,000 for a one-program firm to $2.2 million for the rare few who've reached ten or more. A 147× difference.
There's a hidden ladder. The club knows every rung.
Winning one program sharply predicts winning the next — it isn't luck, it's a path. Most companies' first rung is small (a digital-adoption micro-grant or a summer-jobs cheque); the serious players start at IRAP and climb. Click any rung to see where its winners go next.
Each circle is a federal program, sized by how many for-profit companies have won it. Lines connect programs that winners commonly hold together; "lift" is how many times more likely a program's winners are to also hold another, versus the average company.
The club starts on a different rung.
Most companies' first federal dollar is small and near-universal — a digital-adoption micro-grant or a summer-jobs cheque. The 5% club's first rung is overwhelmingly IRAP, the R&D program that opens the rest of the ladder. Where you start predicts how far you climb.
500 doors. Most lead almost nowhere.
The reason the ladder stays hidden: the system is a maze. Hundreds of programs, scattered across dozens of departments — and the great majority reach almost no one.
of 511 distinct federal business programs — across 38 departments — reached fewer than 10 companies each. No wonder most businesses never find their second door, let alone their tenth.
The companies that climbed every rung.
Real, public, nameable — and not a unicorn among them. A New Brunswick instruments firm, an Ontario food processor. The differentiator isn't the product. It's knowing the whole board. The coloured tags show which rungs each one climbed.
The gap isn't merit. It's knowing what exists.
Most businesses win once because no one ever showed them the next rung. The club didn't have better ideas — they had a better map. Building that map for everyone else is the entire point of GrantCompass.
Find your next rung