Canada’s next generation of founders is building across some of the country’s most complex and rapidly changing industries, from how people achieve their personal goals to how homes are bought and how data centres use energy.

In this Emerging Founders Feature, we spotlight Keleigh McCall, founder of Life-Maxing, Ankita Sharma, founder of Philer, and Mujtaba Khan, founder of Lightgrid Energy. Their companies are tackling very different challenges, but share a common approach: identifying broken or outdated systems and building new technology around the people and industries that depend on them. From AI-powered behaviour change and real estate closings to intelligent data centre optimization, these founders are rethinking how everyday processes work and what they could look like next.

Keleigh McCall | The Life-Maxing App

1: What are you building, and what problem are you trying to solve?

Life-Maxing is a consumer AI app for safe, effective behaviour change and goals. The app applies coaching and personal systems to help people clarify their goals, progress and track them, do it and document with the coach, and finally reach those goals they're always thinking about.

2: What led you to start working on this idea?

I struggled with mental health and behaviour change myself, especially consistency around my goals. I struggled with mental health, and got diagnosed at 28 with bipolar, which made working towards my ambitions and being consistent even harder. A bipolar episode led me to have to start over and I decided to build a personal system for myself instead of just guessing and failing all the time. I posted my journey on social media and started to grow a cult-like following of people interested in the journey and the app.  Behaviour change and feeling stuck but blaming yourself for inconsistency is a really common problem, but the truth is that it's actually due to a lack of the right system. It's not about being 100% perfect, it's about navigating your real life like holidays or being tired sometimes and still making progress overall towards your goals.

3: What has been the biggest challenge so far as an early-stage founder?

I think the doubt. Doubting myself. I know that people struggling with their goals, consistency and wanting to change is a real problem, and I truly believe this is the right solution. And I know that every founder is meant to be cocky and confident, but some days I wonder if I'm the person who can really build this and this business. I see this problem differently because I've lived it, so I think I am. I'm always approaching the problem from wanting to understand, and being obsessed with solving the problem, rather than being the most amazing at computers or school.

4: Where are you currently focusing your time and effort on building or growth?

 Aggressively trying to launch and get our first paying subscribers and early revenue. I'm excited for people to have it finally and get off the waitlist and tell me how to make it better.

5: What does success look like for you over the next year?

Launching in the app store, seeing real people like strangers use it. Locking in on distribution. I'm obsessed with distribution. I spend equal time on the startup as I do building distribution systems.  And having people begin to adopt the language, the systems in their actual life, like a social group identity. Like for people to say to each other and online they're "Life-Maxing." and to share their journeys finally actually hitting their goals. It's already happening now on social media and in my comments section and when my audience meets me in real life- but I want to see it way more, like 100x more or 1000x more.  That's what I care about, helping people to finally actually reach their goals and feel happy, and confident. Like they understand that they were never the problem, they just didn't have the right approach and systems to transform their lives and hitting their goals and now they can. And for sure trying to hit $10K MRR as soon as possible, then 10K MAU/DAU, etc and just watching it keep growing and working for people.

Ankita Sharma | Philer

1: What are you building, and what problem are you trying to solve?

I'm building Philer AI. It is an AI-native platform for residential real estate closings in Canada, accredited by the Law Society of Ontario and the Law Society of Alberta and backed by our own law firm, Philer Law.

In Canada, every property transaction legally requires a lawyer. That requirement isn't going anywhere, but the experience around it is broken. Buyers get handed off to a random firm a few weeks before closing, pay fees they don't understand, chase paperwork, and sign documents nobody has really explained to them. The realtor or mortgage broker who made the referral has zero visibility, and gets blamed when a closing goes sideways.

We automate the end-to-end closing workflow, from title search and lender instructions through document preparation, trust accounting, and fund movement. Licensed lawyers stay in the loop for judgment calls and final sign-off, so every file still carries professional accountability. Clients pay a flat fee and can track the whole process, meaning there are no surprises at the end. We distribute B2B2C through realtors and mortgage brokers, who in turn get a branded, trackable closing experience to offer their clients.

2: What led you to start working on this idea?

It started with buying my own home. The entire transaction, which involved a million dollars of my money and a great deal of sensitive financial information, was run out of an email inbox. That inbox was effectively the dashboard. There was no status tracking and no system of record, just a tangle of threads and attachments that I had to piece together myself to understand what had actually happened.

The bigger problem was what the process missed. There was almost no meaningful due diligence on the property, so issues that should have surfaced early never did, and I ended up sorting out for myself what was actually legal on that property and what wasn't. There were even typos in the deed, on the single largest purchase most people will ever make.

I'm an engineer by training, and I had spent years building GTM teams at two unicorns that digitized retail and lending. I had watched both of those industries move from paper and phone calls to real infrastructure, so I knew what a properly built system looks like and I knew this wasn't one. Closing that gap is what I've been working on ever since.

3: What has been the biggest challenge so far as an early-stage founder?

Raising in Canada at the earliest stage. There's real capital here, but very little of it is set up to write the first cheque. Most funds want to see traction that already looks like a Series A, and the ones that do go early are often waiting for someone else to lead. So you end up in a loop where everyone is interested and nobody is first.

What that meant practically is that we had to build our way to credibility instead of pitching our way to it. We reached over $290M in closed volume, 200+ channel partners, and healthy margins before the conversations really changed. 

4: Where are you currently focusing your time and effort on building or growth?

My time goes to two things: partnerships and the homecoming experience.

On partnerships, my focus is less on adding names to a list and more on making the relationships we already have productive. A partner isn't real until they have sent us a file, watched it close cleanly, and decided to trust us with the next one. The work, then, is shortening the time it takes to get to that first referral and investing in the relationship well after it.

On the experience itself, the goal is to make it something a partner is proud to put their name on. We call a closing a homecoming, because that is what it actually is for the family on the other side of it, and the process should feel that way rather than feeling like a legal transaction happening to them. In practice that means clear communication throughout, no chasing for updates, no surprises at the end, and full visibility for the partner as the file moves.

5: What does success look like for you over the next year?

A thousand happy homecomings.

That's the number I care about. Not closings processed, but a thousand families who got to the end of the biggest purchase of their lives without the stress, the chasing, or the surprises, and who felt looked after the whole way through.

Everything else follows from that. If we get a thousand of those right, the partners keep sending files, the economics work, and the business takes care of itself.

Mujtaba Khan | Lightgrid Energy Ltd.

1: What are you building, and what problem are you solving?

We're building the optimization layer for data centers - a suite of agents (5+) that optimize cooling, power, workloads, and facility operations in real time. The core problem: data centers are scaling faster than the grid can supply power. Today, operators face two bad options: pay premium rates or be unable to get power allocated. Our software increases revenue (more compute per megawatt through efficient operations) and increases speed to power (grid-friendly operation moves projects up the interconnection queue).

2: What led you to start working on this?

My background is in computer science, with roles across Fortune 500s in software, data, anti-money-laundering, and cybersecurity. I moved into energy - coordinating gigawatt-scale virtual power plants across California and Texas - and saw how much value a single large flexible load could unlock for grid stability. I later worked inside a neocloud that shut down after six months when the market wasn't ready. Between those two experiences, it became clear the real opportunity was building the software layer that lets data centers actively support the grid.

3: What's been the biggest challenge?

Communication and growth. Learning to communicate clearly (with the team, partners, investors, and customers) has been a bigger unlock than any technical problem. The other is figuring out what scaling this into a real, unicorn business actually requires. The roadmap for that isn't obvious, and you build it as you go.

4: Where are you focusing your time right now?

Executing on three deployments over the next few months, and building out the sales pipeline with a refined ICP as we bring the product to more customers.

5: What does success look like a year from now?

Closing our current round, landing our first paid pilots and converting them into long-term customers, and building the team and investor base to support the next phase of growth.