Top 25 Spotlight: CampMatch

Solving the Summer Spreadsheet Panic

For parents, seasonal planning brings a predictable calendar of anxiety. The pressure spikes in February for spring break and stretches from April through June for summer camps—transforming simple sign-ups into an overwhelming scramble across dozens of disconnected portals. Piecing together schedules for multiple kids across varying ages, dates, and interests typically requires a chaotic mess of open browser tabs, Facebook groups, and complex spreadsheets that drain weeks of planning time every year.

That frantic reality is exactly what CampMatch is designed to fix. Founded by Victoria-based fathers Craig Frew and Michael Doyle, the startup is creating an intuitive, centralized “planning command centre.” Rather than navigating a fragmented landscape of disconnected websites and localized listings, parents can search comprehensive camp options by location, age, interest, and specific dates, mapping out a visual calendar that instantly flags scheduling conflicts before they happen.

The weight of this logistical hurdle extends far beyond household organization — it’s a critical pillar of support for the broader Canadian economy. According to data from the Canadian Camping Association, the summer camp market is a booming $1 billion industry in Canada, responsible for serving over 600,000 children and employing roughly 30,000 seasonal workers annually. For dual-income households, which comprise the vast majority of Canadian families, secure and reliable summer programming is an absolute economic necessity to maintain workforce participation during school breaks. 

By transforming a fragmented, month-long chore into a streamlined afternoon task, CampMatch injects clarity into a vital consumer ecosystem that has historically relied on word-of-mouth marketing and outdated booking portals.

The Two-Sided Marketplace Momentum

What They’ve Done: CampMatch has completely bypassed the traditional “cold start” hurdle that derails most marketplace ventures. By launching initially as an authentic, community-first tool, the founders established immediate trust with local networks. That grassroots credibility quickly transformed into sweeping national scale: the platform currently indexes more than 90,000 camps from 7,500+ operators across 3,100 North American cities. In the last month alone, CampMatch was utilized by over 30,000 families, driving a massive wave of high-intent traffic by delivering more than 18,000 direct registration referrals straight to camp operators.

Why NVBC: Moving through the 2026 New Ventures BC Competition, presented by Innovate BC, has forced the leadership team to crystallize their business case and translate organic, community-led growth into precise enterprise metrics. Stress-testing the model against expert feedback has provided vital external validation, proving that the platform carries substantial commercial potential alongside its community utility.

Up Next: The immediate roadmap focuses on unlocking new revenue channels by integrating a native booking layer directly into the platform. By leveraging the massive high-intent audience they’ve already captured, the team plans to scale North American user outreach and onboard thousands of new operators—positioning CampMatch as the category leader for seasonal youth programming.

The Power of an Authentic Origin

The foundational strength of CampMatch stems from an asset that well-funded competitors simply cannot replicate: a deeply authentic relationship with the problem. Because the software was engineered out of direct necessity by parents experiencing the systemic fragmentation firsthand, every feature is built around real-world utility rather than a forced monetization scheme.

This consumer-first philosophy caught the attention of the provincial education landscape, earning CampMatch an endorsement from the BC Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils (BCCPAC)—the ultimate trust signal for a family-centric platform. While the marketplace’s rapid scale has attracted copycat platforms, the founders remain entirely unfazed. Feature sets can be copied overnight, but genuine trust, community-led data integrity, and a deep understanding of a parent’s daily chaos cannot be manufactured. Their strategy for defending their market leadership is simple: put their heads down, out-build the competition, and focus relentlessly on delivering value to families and underserved local camp providers alike.