Founded in 2023, Unified.to empowers software teams to launch API integrations fast at any scale. Their goal is to make it simple for SaaS companies to connect to their customers' third-party data to power AI, automation, insights, and better user experiences in their applications.
Roy Pereira, four-time founder and Unified.to’s CEO, shares their innovative approach to building one unified API for AI applications:
“We had to figure out how to build all of these API integrations fast with a small team without getting a ton of technical debt. We had to really think outside of the box and not do what everyone else was doing, which was building bespoke custom code for every integration. Instead, we focused on creating a core architecture that could integrate with any API.”
Just a year later, Unified.to features 16 unified API categories, 200+ integrations, and 600+ distinct data objects.
To fuel the company’s projects, Unified.to leveraged the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax credit program to help grow the business and advance their technology with non-diluted capital. The SR&ED program is the Canadian government’s way of helping Canadian businesses innovate faster through tax credits.
The challenge
With decades of experience filing SR&ED, Roy and Unified.to’s CTO, Alexey Adamsky, ensured that essential information for the claim, such as project, task, and employee payroll details, were well-documented and easily accessible. Their challenge was in finding time to write the tedious claim amid other important tasks needed to run and scale the business.
“As a startup you have limited runway. You don’t have a ton of money, and you want to get that SR&ED claim done quickly so that you can get the cash in the bank. You also don’t have enough time because you’re running a company and don’t want to be highly engaged in writing the claim.”
Roy shares the time he chose to file SR&ED with a large consulting firm because of their recognizable name and reputation, but experienced subpar customer service.
”It was not a pleasant experience whatsoever. It was like we were just another to-do on their very long list. It took forever and it was a ton of work for us. They also work for so many industries that it’s hard for them to fully grasp the specific technology innovation we were building.”
The solution
When it came time to file SR&ED for Unified.to, Roy chose Humi’s SR&ED program for the competitive rate, along with the promise of exceptional, quick service and a clear understanding of the innovative technology their team was building.
As a Humi payroll, HR, and benefits customer, he was also already familiar with our solutions for Canadian businesses. This helped decrease the time to find crucial payroll and employee data needed for the claim.
Roy highlights the easy and personable way that Ali, Humi’s Director of Business & Tax Incentive Solutions, collaborated with them to write the claim. The team even set up a Slack channel to enable real-time communication and fast responses to their questions. But what impressed Roy the most was the minimal effort required of him for a high-quality claim.
“What really stood out for me was how well Ali understood what we had done and how innovative it was, and how little effort he needed from us to write up a really amazing claim.”
Unified.to’s claim took 6-8 weeks to get approval, which Roy notes was a bit longer than expected. He acknowledges that the claim was flagged for a second review not because of its quality, but because it was the company's first SR&ED filing – and that Humi took a proactive approach with them throughout the process.
”We received very good communication from Humi on the status of the claim, and you were ready to step in if needed.”
Currently, Humi has a 100% acceptance rate on claims filed for SR&ED clients.
The results
With the tax credits from their claim, Unified.to was able to grow their engineering team to expand their product’s features, which now has 205 integrations. They plan to file SR&ED claims for the same project and at least one other AI-based project next year.
Humi reduces the time needed to collect technical and financial information by incorporating a proactive approach throughout the year. In the future, the team looks forward to enhancing our offering by building solutions to help speed up the claim creation process.
A potential approach is to use automation to retrieve data from the tools that store essential information needed for the claim, such as JIRA, GitHub, and Asana.
Roy champions the use of automation and AI in the claim creation process, but emphasizes that it’s absolutely crucial to have someone who understands your project's innovation write the claim clearly, or you risk having to make numerous revisions or getting rejected by the CRA.
“In my 20+ years of experience doing SR&ED, Ali was probably the best SR&ED consultant we’ve ever had. He understood why our project was innovative and he wrote it that way. We had exceptionally minimal edits and that’s very rare. I felt very comforted that I didn’t have to worry. It didn’t take a lot of time to go back and forth. I was impressed.”
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