Christy Silvestri spent 17 years as an insurance broker before she decided to build a tool to solve her own daily frustration. The problem was simple: every carrier had its own portal, its own set of underwriting rules, and its own contact lists. Finding the right information to place a client meant logging into a dozen different systems, a process that could eat up two hours of a broker's day [QuickFacts, Undated]. In late 2020, she co-founded QuickFacts Inc. with Jeff Barsalou to consolidate that chaos into a single searchable dashboard.
Now, the Halifax-based company has aggregated carrier data across nine Canadian provinces and raised a $2 million seed round to prove its platform can become the default search layer for the country's brokerage community [QuickFacts, 2024]. The round was led by Sandpiper Ventures, with participation from angel investor Donald Jacobi and the Creative Destruction Lab accelerator [QuickFacts, 2024]. The bet is that operational efficiency, not flashy AI, is the wedge into a conservative industry.
A database built by brokers
The product is a straightforward utility. It pulls contacts, decline rules, policy wordings, forms, and binding guidelines from dozens of carriers into one page, searchable by line and province [QuickFacts, Undated]. Coverage spans Personal Retail, High Value Retail, Commercial Lines, and some MGA specialty products from Nova Scotia to British Columbia [QuickFacts, Undated]. The company recently launched an AI-enhanced commercial product line to categorize documents, but the core value proposition remains access, not automation.
This focus is a direct reflection of the founding team's background. Silvestri, the CEO, was previously Director of Operations and Innovation at a brokerage. Barsalou, the CRO, brings two decades of sales experience and an MBA [Perplexity Sonar, Undated]. They built what they knew brokers needed: a faster way to answer basic questions without picking up the phone. Third-party coverage suggests the platform can reduce underwriting calls by up to 50% [Fintech.ca, 2025].
The partnership play for distribution
With foundational data in place, QuickFacts is now pursuing integrations to embed its tool into broker workflows. Its most significant move to date is a partnership with Acturis, a major SaaS platform for insurance brokers and carriers in Canada [QuickFacts, Undated]. The deal allows QuickFacts to deliver custom workflows within the Acturis environment, putting its search tool directly in front of Acturis's user base. A separate expanded partnership with My Mutual Insurance gives Saskatchewan brokers streamlined access to that carrier's underwriting information [QuickFacts, Undated].
These partnerships are critical for a seed-stage company not yet disclosing customer counts or revenue. They provide a credible distribution channel and validate the product's utility to established industry players. The company's near-term roadmap appears focused on deepening these integrations and expanding its North American footprint, as signaled by the use of its 2024 funding [QuickFacts, 2024].
Where the wheels could come off
The path is not without its obstacles. The Canadian insurtech landscape includes well-funded incumbents like Applied Systems and Vertafore, which offer broader agency management systems. QuickFacts is positioning itself as a complementary, best-of-breed search tool, but its long-term defensibility hinges on three factors.
- Data moat. The painstaking work of aggregating and normalizing carrier data across provinces is a significant upfront barrier. If the dataset is comprehensive and reliably updated, it creates a switching cost for brokers.
- Integration depth. Partnerships like the one with Acturis are only valuable if they lead to deep, sticky workflow embeddings. A superficial link won't drive daily usage.
- Commercial traction. The company has not publicly named any brokerage customers or disclosed deployment scale. For a tool claiming to save hours per day, the absence of named reference clients is a notable gap in the public narrative.
Furthermore, the company's claims of leveraging blockchain technology, mentioned in one third-party article, are not elaborated on its own website and add an element of unclear tech buzz to an otherwise pragmatic product story [Fintech.ca, 2025].
The next twelve months
For QuickFacts, 2025 is a proof-of-execution year. The $2 million from Sandpiper Ventures and others needs to translate into measurable growth signals beyond provincial coverage. The key metrics to watch will be the adoption rate within the Acturis partnership, the announcement of flagship brokerage customers, and any expansion moves into the United States.
The seed round, led by Sandpiper Ventures at a valuation that remains undisclosed, provides the runway. The question for investors like Sandpiper's Donald Olding and angel backer Donald Jacobi is whether a focused data utility can achieve sufficient scale and gross margins to justify a venture outcome, or if it becomes an attractive acquisition target for a larger platform seeking to bolster its own data offerings. Can a tool built to save brokers two hours a day become a business worth hundreds of millions?
Sources
- [QuickFacts, 2024] QuickFacts Raises $2M to Accelerate Software Expansion Across North America | https://www.quickfactsinc.com/news/2024-funding-round-close
- [QuickFacts, Undated] Underwriting Comparisons Software | https://www.quickfactsinc.com/comparisons
- [QuickFacts, Undated] Frequently Asked Questions | https://www.quickfactsinc.com/faq
- [Perplexity Sonar, Undated] Company and team background summary
- [Fintech.ca, 2025] Article on QuickFacts technology and claims | https://fintech.ca
- [QuickFacts, Undated] Acturis Partners with QuickFacts | https://www.quickfactsinc.com/news/acturis-partners-with-quickfacts-to-deliver-custom-workflows-to-strengthen-broker-operations
- [QuickFacts, Undated] QuickFacts Expands Partnership with My Mutual Insurance | https://www.quickfactsinc.com/news/quickfacts-expands-partnership-with-mymutual