TL;DR: Lauren Valliere, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of GrowWise Partners, has been named one of FoundersBeta’s Top Female Founders of 2026. The list is part of FoundersBeta’s Top Founders and Tech Leaders to Watch, 2026 Edition, which recognizes people across Canada’s startup and technology ecosystem for their leadership and impact.
I’m Garron Helman, Lauren’s co-founder at GrowWise Partners, a Canadian SR&ED consulting firm. FoundersBeta took notice of what Lauren has been building, and I wanted to take a moment to celebrate it properly. Most of what earned her this spot happens far away from any awards list.
“It’s an absolute honour to be named one of FoundersBeta’s Top Female Founders of 2026, and to be recognized alongside so many incredible women. Building a company is hard, and every founder on this list knows it. Thank you to FoundersBeta for celebrating us, and congratulations to everyone on the list.”
Lauren Valliere, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, GrowWise Partners
If you’re an early-stage founder wondering where SR&ED fits for your company, Lauren and our team are happy to help. Book a free call with our team.
She teaches first
The simplest way to describe Lauren is that she genuinely wants to help people. Not in a mission-statement way. She makes time for companies that are nowhere near their first claim yet, just so they understand the program before they need it.
SR&ED (Scientific Research and Experimental Development) is a big program. CRA allowed $4.6B in SR&ED investment tax credits in 2025-26, according to its annual program statistics. Plenty of founders still don’t know it exists until someone tells them. Lauren has made a habit of being that someone.
She does a lot of free education and support through her mentoring at accelerators across Canada and GrowWise’s ecosystem partnerships, including our ongoing work with Communitech, DMZ, and many others. Her reasoning is practical. A founder who understands SR&ED early knows what to track as the company grows, and gets to their first claim ready to claim what they’re entitled to and support it properly. Her guide on whether you’re too early for SR&ED shows exactly how she thinks about it.
Trust before the claim
The relationship I think shows Lauren best is with one of GrowWise’s longest-standing clients. They were a startup that had filed SR&ED before, so they didn’t need convincing about the program. What they wanted was a real partner: someone tech-enabled who would support them through the whole year, not just show up at year-end.
Lauren didn’t rush it. She took the time to build their trust, walk them through how our technology works, and show them how we’d make the process as simple as possible for their team. Many years later, they’re still with GrowWise and still happy with the work. Over the years, we’ve secured more than $250,000 in SR&ED tax credits for them, with the kind of year-round SR&ED tracking they were looking for in the first place.
As Lauren told FoundersBeta, “Nothing is ever an ‘overnight success.'” That client is a good example of what she means.
Building in an industry dominated by men
I’ll say it plainly: this is an industry dominated by men. I’m so proud of, and impressed by, what Lauren has built in this space. She’s shaking it up, that’s for sure, and it’s great to see her get recognition she deserves.
She’s also clear about where she’s going. As she told FoundersBeta, her goal is to grow GrowWise into Canada’s largest SR&ED consulting firm. I can’t wait to see how she keeps growing the business, and I wouldn’t bet against her.
A big year for Lauren
This is Lauren’s second major recognition of 2026. In August, she was named one of The Peak’s 2026 Emerging Leaders in artificial intelligence. The Peak recognized the AI side of what she’s built. FoundersBeta recognized the founder behind it.
About GrowWise Partners
At GrowWise, we believe that SR&ED shouldn’t suck. GrowWise Partners is a Canadian SR&ED tax credit consulting firm working with companies in every industry and province. We use supervised AI: AI document discovery connects to the tools your team already uses (GitHub, Jira, Confluence, Linear and shared drives) to surface eligible R&D, and voice-AI technical interviews of about 20 minutes capture the technical story from your engineers. A senior SR&ED consultant creates, reviews and signs off on every claim, and it takes under five hours of your team’s time in total. If CRA reviews a claim, we defend it at no extra cost. You pay when CRA pays you.
Learn more about how GrowWise handles SR&ED, or start with our guide for companies new to SR&ED.
Quick answers
Who is Lauren Valliere? Lauren Valliere is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of GrowWise Partners, a Canadian SR&ED consulting firm. A chemical engineer from the University of Waterloo, she leads sales, marketing and partnerships. In 2026 she was named a Peak Emerging Leader and one of FoundersBeta’s Top Female Founders.
Is Lauren Valliere the founder of GrowWise? Yes. Lauren Valliere co-founded GrowWise Partners with Garron Helman, and she is the firm’s Managing Partner.
What awards has Lauren Valliere received? In 2026, Lauren Valliere was named one of The Peak’s Emerging Leaders in artificial intelligence (August) and one of FoundersBeta’s Top Female Founders of 2026, part of its Top Founders and Tech Leaders to Watch, 2026 Edition (October).
What is FoundersBeta’s Top Female Founders of 2026 list? It’s a list FoundersBeta published on October 28, 2026, profiling women founders in Canada’s startup and technology ecosystem. It’s part of FoundersBeta’s Top Founders and Tech Leaders to Watch, 2026 Edition.
What does GrowWise Partners do? GrowWise helps Canadian companies claim SR&ED tax credits. AI gathers the evidence from the tools the team already uses, a senior consultant creates and signs off on every claim, and audit defence is included if CRA reviews it.
Congratulations, Lauren
Congratulations to Lauren, and to every founder on FoundersBeta’s Top Female Founders of 2026 list. If you’d like to talk about SR&ED for your own company, book a free consultation with our team.
