Funding the projects that drive manufacturing growth.

Manufacturers think in projects, not programs. Here is how funding supports the investments you are already planning.

Industries We Support

We work with Canadian manufacturers across:

Metal Fabrication & Machining
Cabinetry & Millwork
Food & Beverage Processing
Plastics & Molding
Automotive & Parts
Industrial Equipment

Equipment Investments

When you buy a new CNC machine, a press, or a full production line, the capital is only part of the story. The purchase, the tooling, and the work to bring the equipment into production each carry different funding.

EXAMPLE

A metal fabricator installs a new laser cutting cell, then develops the fixturing and process to cut a material the shop could not run before.

WHAT CAN BE FUNDED

The capital itself can qualify for the Ontario Made Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit, which returns 15 percent on qualifying machinery and equipment for eligible corporations. Buying and installing a standard machine is not SR&ED. But where you develop new tooling or solve a genuine process problem to make the equipment do something it could not do as supplied, that development work can qualify for SR&ED.

WHAT WE WOULD LOOK AT

Whether this is a straight capital claim, or whether the commissioning and process work around it opens an SR&ED claim as well, and how to time the purchase against the credit year.

Automation Projects

Automation rarely runs as plug and play. Integrating a robotic cell, re-sequencing a line, or building a custom material-handling system usually means solving problems no vendor manual covers.

EXAMPLE

A cabinetry manufacturer integrates a robotic spray-finishing cell and develops the control logic to handle its full range of door profiles without re-teaching the robot for every batch.

WHAT CAN BE FUNDED

The capital equipment can qualify for investment tax credits. The integration and control-development work, where you face real technical uncertainty getting the system to perform, can qualify for SR&ED. IRAP can support the salary and contractor cost of the development team through a contribution agreement, which is applied for before the work begins.

WHAT WE WOULD LOOK AT

Where routine integration ends and genuine development begins, since that line decides what is an investment tax credit, what is SR&ED, and what is neither.

Facility Expansion

Adding a building, a line, or capacity is a capital project with a long timeline, and funding for it is won or lost on sequence. Grants in particular are decided before you break ground, not after.

EXAMPLE

A food processor adds a second production line and refrigerated storage to move into a new product category.

WHAT CAN BE FUNDED

Expansion draws on regional and provincial grant programs, financing to bridge the capital, and investment tax credits on qualifying assets. Where the expansion includes building or commissioning a process that has not been done before, parts of it can reach SR&ED.

WHAT WE WOULD LOOK AT

The build timeline against grant intake windows, because most expansion grants must be approved before costs are committed, and a project already underway has usually missed them.

Technology Adoption

ERP, MES, production-visibility systems, and quality platforms change how a plant runs. The funding question turns on whether you are adopting software or developing something around it.

EXAMPLE

A parts manufacturer rolls out a manufacturing execution system and builds custom integrations to pull live data from older machines that were never designed to report it.

WHAT CAN BE FUNDED

Buying and configuring commercial software is routine, and routine adoption is not SR&ED. But genuine custom development, the integration work to make incompatible systems talk to each other, or building capability the platform does not offer, can qualify for SR&ED. Digital adoption and productivity grants can support the broader rollout.

WHAT WE WOULD LOOK AT

Whether the project is configuration of an existing system, which points toward grants, or real custom development, which can open an SR&ED claim, and where a single project contains both.

Product Development & Innovation

Developing a new product, reformulating a material, or improving a process is the most direct fit for innovation funding because the work is experimental by nature.

EXAMPLE

A plastics manufacturer reformulates a resin blend to hit a new strength and temperature specification, running iterations that fail before one works.

WHAT CAN BE FUNDED

This is the core of SR&ED, which returns up to 35 percent of eligible development cost as a refundable credit for Canadian-controlled private corporations. IRAP can fund the development team's time, and innovation and commercialization grants can support the path to market. The failed iterations are not a problem here. The experimentation is exactly what SR&ED is built to support.

WHAT WE WOULD LOOK AT

The technological uncertainty behind the work, since SR&ED rests on whether you faced a problem standard practice could not solve, not on whether the product is new to your catalogue.

Export Growth

Entering a new market is a growth project with its own funding, separate from anything happening on the plant floor.

EXAMPLE

An equipment manufacturer pursues buyers in the US Midwest, with the trade-show, certification, and market-research costs that come with it.

WHAT CAN BE FUNDED

CanExport and related market-development programs can fund a share of the cost of entering new export markets, including market research, trade shows, certification, and adapting materials for a new market. These are grant programs applied for before the spend.

WHAT WE WOULD LOOK AT

Which markets and which costs qualify, and the timing, since export grants reimburse approved costs and will not cover spending already committed.

Most projects touch more than one funding source.

A new line can carry equipment credits, automation development, and a grant on the build at once. The programs interact. Funding from one source can reduce the base of another, so the order you claim them in changes the total you keep. Coordinating that is the work.

See how the funding fits together →

Planning one of these?

Tell us about your project and we will assess your funding options.

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