The people
What they build
Open roles via the TechTO Job Board
No roles on the TechTO Job Board yet.
Hiring? Reach 70,000 Canadian tech readers through the weekly TechTO newsletter.
Post a role on jobs.techto.org ↗Listings sync from jobs.techto.org — the only structured source. We don’t scrape career sites.
On the TechTO stage
Mike Gardner of Agreement Express presents Lessons from The Martian (yes the movie)
Watch on YouTube ↗
Mike Gardner of Agreement Express presents Fintech Lessons from the Martian
Watch on YouTube ↗Mike Gardner of Agreement Express presents The Enterprise is a Starship
Watch on YouTube ↗Every talk is searchable — ask the archive about Agreement Express ↗
About
The company was founded in Vancouver in 2001 as Recombo and took the Agreement Express name in 2016. Its pitch was that enterprise onboarding — the paperwork between a bank saying yes and a customer actually being a customer — could be automated rather than implemented over months. Gardner told the TechTO stage in December 2016 that it had grown about 43% a year for five years on its own capital, with more than 40% of its customers in the Fortune 500. Frontier Capital bought a majority stake in 2018, reported at $65M, when the company had more than 130 clients and over $10M in annualized revenue. In December 2022 the business was broken up: NMI took the payments onboarding, underwriting and risk products on December 6, and Advisor360° took the wealth-management technology, clients and staff on December 23. Agreement Express does not operate as an independent company. Its old domain now redirects to NMI.
Backers
Grew on its own capital, not venture money — Gardner made the point from the TechTO stage in 2016. Frontier Capital (now Frontier Growth) took a majority stake in 2018, reported by The Globe and Mail at $65M, and still held the wealth-management arm when the assets were sold off in December 2022.
Quick answers
Does Agreement Express still exist?
No. Its assets were split and sold in December 2022 — NMI took the payments onboarding, underwriting and risk business on December 6, and Advisor360° took the wealth-management technology, intellectual property, clients and staff on December 23. The agreementexpress.com domain now redirects to NMI.
What did Agreement Express do?
It automated client onboarding for financial firms — banks, wealth managers, insurers and payment processors. Gardner's argument from the TechTO stage was that enterprise software gets designed lazily, forcing waterfall implementations that take months; his company shipped updates to every customer platform every two weeks instead.
Who ran Agreement Express?
Mike Gardner was CEO from 2005 and described himself on the TechTO stage in 2017 as the founder of Agreement Express. He now owns Property Fox, a Vancouver software company for mortgage brokers, and teaches entrepreneurship at UBC.
Was Agreement Express venture-backed?
Not at first. Gardner told TechTO in 2016 it had grown roughly 43% a year for five years, profitably, on its own capital — 'no offense to the VCs in the room.' Frontier Capital bought a majority stake in 2018, reported at $65M.