Newly launched affiliate marketing firm aims to restructure and transform the former FinTech startup.
Plutera Capital has acquired the assets of fellow Montréal company Hardbacon, including the Hardbacon.ca domain, following the FinTech startup’s shutdown last year.
Hardbacon offered a free budgeting app and generated revenue through lead generation and affiliate marketing for financial products. As BetaKit reported, Hardbacon closed down in 2024, laying off the remainder of its employees with the intent of filing for bankruptcy after most of the company’s Google traffic vanished following some updates to the search giant’s algorithm.
“We’re focused on restructuring and transforming Hardbacon into a flagship platform that sets a new standard for financial tools and resources in Canada.”
The financial terms of this deal, which marks Plutera’s first acquisition, were not disclosed. Plutera’s plans appear to involve retaining the Hardbacon brand.
“As our first site, we’re focused on restructuring and transforming Hardbacon into a flagship platform that sets a new standard for financial tools and resources in Canada,” Plutera wrote in a LinkedIn post announcing the deal.
According to its LinkedIn page, Plutera operates affiliate marketing platforms that connect consumers with financial products and services. LinkedIn indicates Plutera is led by president David Szemerda and vice-president Mathieu Laliberte, who also lead Montréal performance marketing agency ODM World.
“Through the acquisition of Hardbacon.ca, we recognized an exceptional opportunity to revitalize a Canadian platform with a rich history in the financial space,” Szemerda told BetaKit. “Our goal is to guide Hardbacon.ca back to its former glory and beyond, leveraging its legacy to deliver even greater value to its audience.”
Szemerda said that Plutera was launched in late 2024 following the acquisition of Hardbacon’s assets, adding that the company aims to position itself “as a leading super affiliate in the financial sector.”
“Although I’m not involved in Hardbacon’s relaunch, I’m happy that the assets were bought out of bankruptcy and that the Plutera Capital team wants to keep the brand alive,” HardBacon co-founder and former CEO Julien Brault wrote in a LinkedIn post. “I wish them the best.”
RELATED: Hardbacon to file for bankruptcy after Google search changes crush affiliate business
Brault, a former book publisher and business and tech journalist, co-founded Hardbacon back in 2017 as a platform for retail investors to analyze and manage their portfolios. After struggling to monetize the app via subscriptions, in 2020, the startup pivoted to focusing exclusively on a component it already offered—budgeting—and layering on financial product comparison tools and educational personal finance content to draw consumers in.
From 2020 on, Hardbacon offered its budgeting app for free and generated revenue through lead generation and affiliate marketing via search engine optimization (SEO) for financial institutions, collecting a fee for connecting consumers with products like credit cards, bank accounts, and insurance. It also hosted sponsored content.
Hardbacon had raised approximately $3 million CAD from about 2,000 individual investors via crowdfunding.
In September 2023, Google implemented some updates designed to combat spam that led to a steep decline in hits to Hardbacon’s website, a blow from which Brault previously told BetaKit that the search engine optimization (SEO)-reliant company was never able to recover.
Last year, Brault expressed his hope that Hardbacon’s tech and content would live on in some capacity. His wish now appears to have been granted through the Plutera deal.
Feature image courtesy Hardbacon.