Aragon is the ecosystem behind founders building in Canada
For over a decade we’ve built and connected the parts a company needs to get off the ground: our own accounting firm, a venture capital vehicle, in-house legal support, government financing relationships, and a space in North Vancouver where founders work alongside people who have already done it. Ninety companies have come through here, across three continents, and more than fifty are in the active portfolio today.
Our mission is to take founders from an idea to investor-ready.
How Aragon Fits Together
Most incubators hand founders a list of people to call. We spent ten years building those functions ourselves, one at a time, and today they operate together from one space in North Vancouver.
Incubation
Aragon is the incubation work, a set of stages that follow the company instead of a calendar, so a founder comes in where the company already is and stays with us until it is ready to raise.
Capital
Arete Venture Capital Corporation is the capital arm, led by our CEO Mehdi Hosseini, who invests across technology and real estate. It puts money into companies built here, and we know Canada’s government financing programs from ten years of going through them with founders.
Accounting
Our accounting firm sets up the books from month one and builds a financial model made to survive diligence, then finds the grants, credits and loans the company qualifies for.
Legal
In-house legal covers incorporation, legal structure, shareholder agreements, IP search and employee agreements, all handled by our own lawyer. Packaged together with the accounting work, this is the Startup Kit.
The space
The space in North Vancouver holds private offices, coworking desks, meeting rooms and a podcast room, and it runs a full calendar of founder events, including a monthly pitch night where founders present to local angel investors.
Mentors
Our mentors have built and sold companies of their own, and they work with founders on strategy and investor readiness. Some embed as fractional CEOs, CTOs and CFOs, month after month, inside the company.
Programs
Programs are the accounting, HR and technology courses, taught by the people who run those functions inside our own companies, so the curriculum comes out of problems they have already solved.
Landing in Canada
Landing in Canada means a founder arriving from abroad comes into a company that is already incorporated, banked and on the books, with the accounting and legal work done before they land.
Our Impact
From a visa program to an ecosystem
Aragon began with the Start-up Visa program. Arete Ventures was a designated organization, which meant international founders could come to Canada through it, but there was a piece missing: someone to get those founders ready to qualify in the first place. Idea validation, pitch decks, market research, business structure. Aragon was built to do that work.
Over the years it grew into something larger, one piece at a time. Founders needed accounting, so we built the accounting firm. They needed legal structure, so we brought a lawyer in-house. They needed capital, so we set up the venture capital vehicle and learned our way through the government financing programs. Nothing here was designed in advance. Each part exists because a founder in front of us needed it and there was nobody good to send them to.
When the federal government closed the Start-up Visa program to new applicants, the route Aragon was built around disappeared. What remained was everything we had built while using it: the firms, the capital, the space, and a decade of relationships that never depended on the program. Many of the founders who came through it are still working through permanent residency and will build here when they land. Alongside them, Aragon now does the same work for Canadian founders, early-stage companies that want to build a company and not just a product.
Built here, taken public
Yocale is the clearest example. The platform was developed over more than a decade by Yocale Network Corporation, with Aragon’s accounting, legal and go-to-market resources behind it for much of that time. In May 2026, Yocale.ai Inc. began trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange as CSE: YAI. The people who built it are still in this network today.
“Getting a company to the point where it can go public takes more than a product. It takes the accounting in order, the legal structure right, the financing relationships already built, and people around you who have been through it. A lot of that came from Aragon, and it was in place long before we were ready to list.”
Aydin Asli | CEO, Yocale.ai Inc. (CSE: YAI)
Our Story
Aragon began with the Start-up Visa program. Arete Ventures was a designated organization, which meant international founders could come to Canada through it, but there was a piece missing: someone to get those founders ready to qualify in the first place. Idea validation, pitch decks, market research, business structure. Aragon was built to do that work.
What We Believe
Vision
Aragon is where founders in Canada build companies ready for institutional capital.
Mission
Build the accounting, legal, capital and workspace a company needs, keep them under one roof, and stay with the founder until the company is ready for institutional capital.
Values
Ownership
We build the functions founders need and run them ourselves.
Commitment
We stay with a company for as long as it needs us, with no cohort to graduate from.
Partnership
We work inside a company, alongside its founder.
Practicality
Every session ends with something a founder can act on, because it is taught from problems we have already solved.
Access
An introduction from someone who has done it beats a name on a list, so our network is open to the founders here.
Our Mentors
Every mentor here has built, raised or exited a company of their own. Many work alongside founders as fractional leaders, sitting with them on strategy, hiring and investor readiness.
Ready to Apply to Aragon?
Aragon works with early-stage founders ready to move fast, whether you’ve got an idea, a team building toward launch, or a company already raising. Tell us where you’re at and what you’re building.