Puneet Gupta still remembers the moment he realized just how costly life as an expat can be.
“Last year I paid about $7,400 in avoidable taxes because of just one missing word,” he said. “And I have a finance background.”
If someone with Gupta’s experience could make a mistake that expensive, he wondered, how were others managing?
Gupta spent years, early in his career working on ships and becoming a sailing captain, which taught him how to navigate complex systems and stay organized across changing circumstances, skills that would later prove essential in managing finances across countries.
After his sailing years, Gupta transitioned into finance before joining Amazon. It was after his first relocation from India to England in 2012 that he realized the challenges of managing personal finances across borders and why existing solutions fell short.
By 2022, he and his family relocated to Canada, and by 2024, he was given the opportunity to transition again, this time moving to the United States. Gupta had to decline the work transition due to difficulties with cross-border finances, despite his excitement for the role.
“I realized the pain of being an expat, how difficult it is, and I was looking for a solution,” he said. “I really wanted to move to the U.S., but I didn’t want to have my finances now spread across four different countries. I couldn’t find anything that could help me.”
This personal experience led to the creation of Aequify, a fintech platform that allows expats to connect bank and investment accounts across 30+ countries to view their global net worth, assets, tax status and liabilities in one place.
“I felt that this was a problem that needed to be solved and because there was nothing out there, I left Amazon and I started my journey here building Aequify.”
Building a platform for global finances
Since launching their MVP in March 2025, the platform has been expanding its features.
“We will be launching a few new features in the coming weeks, including a marketplace for tax consultants and experts to come together,” he said. “It can be super expensive to find the right tax consultant who understands not just U.S. or Canadian taxes, but also understands the rules in your country of residence.”
Tackling taxes across borders
Gupta explains that most solutions focus either on domestic customers or simply on processing data for tax filing. But Aequify streamlines data collection and tax optimization through AI and open banking.
“For the most part, expats get help on tax filing, not on tax optimization,” he said.
Aequify’s technology combines open banking access to transactional data with AI-driven insights to answer all of these questions and automatically identify deductions and optimization opportunities.
“To give you an example, we have a property in the UK. I wish somebody had told me to sell that property before I moved because now I will have to pay taxes on that property in both the UK and Canada,” he said. “If I had this platform when I was relocating, that insight could have saved me almost $40,000 in taxes.”
By creating the system he wished he had during his transition, Gupta and his team have already saved early users time and money.
“One customer told us it was her first time filing taxes on her own using our platform,” he explained. “Before she was spending hours on foreign bank reporting and by using Aequify, she said it took her two minutes, instead of two hours.”
Solving a real, personal problem
Reflecting on the personal motivation behind Aequify, Gupta emphasizes the human impact of financial stress.
“I recently spoke to someone on a call who was in tears,” he shared. “We were having a conversation about being an expat and she mentioned how she left everything to move to the US. Now she’s back in Canada, and she filed her taxes without help, and the CRA and IRS are sending her notices all the time, for a simple mistake. She was overwhelmed, and you could hear the fear and frustration in her voice. I felt that very deeply. That is the real motivation for me. Fixing this problem matters. We are all truly passionate about it. It is not about the money.”
The Waterloo Region advantage
Waterloo Region’s tech ecosystem has been instrumental to Aequify’s early growth. Gupta credits the region’s supportive culture that gave him the confidence to pursue his startup.
“I reached out to many entrepreneurs and I cannot recall even a single one who said ‘I don’t have time,’” he said. “Everyone who has been on this journey has given me their time and advice. Communitech has given some amazing insight and motivation, too. The energy here is good, and the people are very supportive and helpful.”
From working on ships to leading teams at Amazon to building a fintech platform, Gupta’s journey shows the power of personal experience, innovative thinking and a supportive local ecosystem.
Through all the difficulties of relocating, filing taxes and figuring out how to best transition, his focus remains clear.
“How can we ensure that people can move around freely without the hassle of taxes?”
Facing a complex challenge? The Communitech community is here to help you find solutions, share insights and turn your bold ideas into impact. Reach out today!
