Ottawa startup PlanBase is looking to reduce the time advisors spend assembling and reviewing client plans with financial planning software built from scratch for Canadian financial planners, independent advisors, and firms.
Rather than adapting a U.S. tool, PlanBase combines a purpose-built Canadian planning engine with an AI associate called Finn, designed to help advisors prepare, check, and explain financial plans.
Founded in 2025, the bootstrapped company targets a workload familiar to financial planners: gathering client information, entering figures from statements and tax documents, checking projections, and turning the results into reports clients can understand.
PlanBase combines document import with tools spanning retirement, estate, insurance, and individual pension plan planning. Finn helps populate and check plans, flag gaps, explore scenarios, and draft client reports, with advisors retaining final approval.
Co-founder Alex Bernier brings more than 17 years of financial planning experience to the product. A Certified Financial Planner whose credentials also include CIM, PFP, and an LL.M., Bernier began his career at CIBC before moving into wealth management and private banking, including a Senior Private Banker role at Laurentian Bank.
He says he designed PlanBase’s planning engine himself, drawing on his experience working with more than 1,000 clients.
That practitioner perspective shapes the platform’s Canadian focus, including province-specific probate rules, the differences between Quebec’s pension system and the Canada Pension Plan, and bilingual functionality.
“The goal is that no stone is left unturned for advisors, wherever in Canada their clients live,” Bernier says.
Co-founder Charlie Gracie joined in 2026 to help lead engineering. The Ottawa-based software engineering leader previously held roles as a Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft and Senior Software Developer at IBM Canada and DataDog, with a background spanning engineering leadership, software performance, and scalable systems.
For PlanBase, the early pitch centres on reducing preparation work while keeping advisors responsible for the recommendations.
With no outside funding, PlanBase is building its business around advisor subscriptions. Its ambition is to give advisors more time for analysis and client conversations by reducing the manual work required to prepare a financial plan.
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