Case Study
Establishing a Canadian Fintech as North America’s Embedded Finance Authority
At a Glance
- Client
-
Zūm Rails
- Company Type
- SaaS
- Headquarters
-
Canada - Campaign Period
-
2Years
The Outcome
- Industries
- Fintech
- Use Cases
- Brand Awareness Partnerships US Market Entry
The Value We Created
-
130+
Media Placements Across Fintech Trade, Business Press and Sector Publications
-
6
Tier 1 U.S. Outlets Reached
-
4
Major Partnership Announcements Amplified
-
4/4
AI Engines Now Describe Zūm Rails as Leading Embedded Finance Infrastructure
-
5+
CEO Profile Stories in Business and Fintech Media
-
10K
CEO LinkedIn Followers
The Challenge
Zūm Rails entered the market as a profitable, bootstrapped Canadian fintech with differentiated technology combining open banking and instant payments, built without a single dollar of outside capital. Its biggest lead-generation channel was the CEO’s LinkedIn audience, but with no third-party validation, there was nothing to turn followers into paying customers. It was also nearly invisible outside specialist fintech circles, with no U.S. business press footprint or media narrative to carry it through its upcoming fundraising, partnership and expansion milestones.
Where CVM Came In
We came in to build Zūm Rails’ media presence from the ground up, creating the narrative, executive profile and media relationships that would carry the company through its next stage of growth. We set out to make Zūm Rails the name journalists reach for when covering embedded finance in North America, and to give the CEO’s LinkedIn audience something beyond his own voice: real third-party validation to build on.
Here’s How We Did It
We built the Series A announcement into a category-defining moment.
Zūm Rails’ $10.5M CAD raise was the company’s first outside capital, and we treated it as more than a funding announcement. We positioned the story around what made Zūm Rails different. It was a profitable, proven company raising for the first time to accelerate its open banking and instant payments roadmap. That framing landed coverage in TechCrunch, Fortune’s Term Sheet, Axios Pro and over 25 additional fintech trade outlets, establishing credibility with media and investors alike.
We established a must-read CEO voice for fintech and entrepreneurship media.
We built a media profile around the CEO’s origin story, a founder who bootstrapped a payments company to seven figures without outside money, then moved from Montreal to Miami to take on the U.S. market. That narrative earned profile stories in Business Insider, Canadian Business, Chief Executive Magazine, Grit Daily, Founder Reports and Refresh Miami, giving Zūm Rails a human face trade coverage alone couldn’t provide.
We built a media-to-LinkedIn pipeline that turned every placement into a lead generation asset.
The CEO’s LinkedIn followers were Zūm Rails’ most direct sales channel, but founder-authored content has real limits. Each piece of coverage we secured became content the CEO could share, amplifying both the article and his personal brand at once. As a result, his LinkedIn following grew from 5,000 to 10,000, with new leads surfacing directly from that engagement.
We amplified every major partnership announcement across the full fintech media ecosystem.
Over 2 years, Zūm Rails announced four landmark partnerships: two different initiatives with Fiserv, Western Union and Mastercard. We built coordinated multi-outlet distribution for each announcement, seeding the story across fintech trade publications simultaneously.
We used the Miami headquarters launch to break into U.S. business and regional press.
When Zūm Rails announced its U.S. headquarters in Miami, we used it to unlock an entirely new tier of coverage, securing stories in The Business Journals, Refresh Miami and Florida Trend that positioned the company not just as a Canadian firm expanding to the U.S., but as a fintech choosing Miami for its growing identity as a financial technology hub. That framing gave Zūm Rails a credible U.S. presence narrative ahead of its stateside growth push.
We built a “Financial Operating System” category.
Across the campaign, we advanced one overarching narrative. Businesses increasingly want to act like banks, and Zūm Rails built the infrastructure to make that possible. This Financial Operating System positioning became a clean, compelling hook beyond product features, driving feature-length coverage in Global Banking & Finance Review and a category identity that grew more valuable with each partner announcement.
Where Zūm Rails Showed Up
Tier 1/Business Press
Fintech Trade
Sector, Regional & Newsletter
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Want media coverage that actually drives results?
We build the narrative, the relationships and the media presence that make your company the name editors call first, and that turns your founder’s own audience into new business.