In this biography
Quick facts
- Born
- June 1985
- Birthplace
- Calgary, Alberta, Canada
- Country
- Canada
- Nationality
- Canadian
- Known for
- SnapSaves, Clearbanc/Clearco and revenue-based financing for online businesses
- Education
- Queen’s University engineering degree, 2007; MBA, 2008
- Clearbanc co-founders
- Andrew D’Souza, Charlie Feng and Ivan Gritsiniak, alongside Romanow
- CEO tenure
- Became Clearco CEO in 2022; Andrew Curtis succeeded her in January 2023
- Role checked in October 2026
- Clearco’s own directory lists Co-Founder, Observer, not current CEO or director
Why this life matters
Her career connects online commerce and alternative business finance with the difficult distinction between rapid fundraising, a sustainable product and durable corporate leadership.
Timeline
Key moments
Calgary, Saskatchewan and Queen’s
Born in June 1985; grows up in Saskatchewan and earns engineering and business degrees at Queen’s.
Student-run Tea Room
Helps launch the engineering-student café at Queen’s.
SnapSaves acquisition
Groupon acquires the mobile grocery-savings business she co-founded.
Television and Clearbanc
Joins Dragons’ Den and co-founds Clearbanc with three other entrepreneurs.
Rebrand, growth and restructuring
Clearbanc becomes Clearco in 2021; Romanow’s CEO tenure ends in January 2023 amid retrenchment.
A different current role
Clearco identifies her as co-founder and observer, while Andrew Curtis is CEO and director.
Engineering, business study and a student café
Romanow was born in Calgary and raised in Saskatchewan. A public UK officer record establishes June 1985 and Canadian nationality, without supplying a birth day. She completed an engineering degree at Queen’s University in 2007 and an MBA in 2008, combining technical study with an interest in building businesses.
At Queen’s she helped establish the student-run Tea Room in 2006. The university’s account identifies a group of engineering students, not an enterprise created by Romanow alone. Contemporary student-newspaper coverage also documents her management work. That small operation required customers, staffing and day-to-day execution, providing a different kind of experience from a classroom business plan.
Early ventures included setbacks as well as an acquisition
After university, Romanow worked on Evandale Caviar. Queen’s describes the difficulties of selling a luxury product during the financial crisis and of navigating export requirements. This was not an uninterrupted sequence of successful exits: market conditions and regulatory obstacles affected what the founders could do.
Her later businesses included Buytopia and the mobile savings venture SnapSaves, which Groupon acquired in 2014. A company acquisition establishes a transaction, not a publicly verified personal windfall of a particular size. The move from caviar to digital commerce also shows experimentation across markets rather than one unchanged business model progressing inevitably toward Clearco.
Dragons’ Den and the founding of Clearbanc
Romanow joined Dragons’ Den in 2015. In the same year she co-founded Clearbanc with Andrew D’Souza, Charlie Feng and Ivan Gritsiniak. Naming the other founders avoids allowing the television personality’s visibility to replace the history of the company’s actual founding group.
Clearbanc initially explored financial services for people earning through online platforms before concentrating on financing e-commerce companies. Its later proposition was that a merchant could obtain business funding without selling an ownership stake to the financier. That was an alternative financing structure, not a promise that every business would qualify or that the money would never have to be repaid.
The Clearco rebrand separated customer finance from company fundraising
Clearbanc announced its Clearco rebrand in April 2021, presenting itself as a broader partner for online businesses. Historical reporting describes advances repaid from a share of revenue, with a fee rather than an equity stake or board seat. Terms and products changed over time, so that description should not be mistaken for a current financing quotation.
The company also raised money for itself. Its April 2021 US$100 million equity round was distinct from the debt capital used to support customer financing; a separate SoftBank-led investment followed that July. Headlines combining equity and debt can make those amounts look interchangeable. They are different obligations and do not measure how much Romanow personally received.
Growth gave way to layoffs and a CEO transition
Romanow became Clearco CEO in 2022, succeeding D’Souza. The company subsequently reduced staff and retrenched from international markets as financing conditions tightened. In January 2023 Andrew Curtis replaced her as CEO; contemporary BetaKit and Canadian Press reporting recorded further layoffs and her move to executive co-chair.
These outcomes are material to a biography centred on financial innovation. Rapid fundraising and a high private-company valuation did not remove funding, credit or operating risks. The reporting establishes a difficult corporate restructuring, not an allegation that Romanow personally committed a crime or that every merchant-financing transaction had the same outcome.
Present titles and a qualified account of entrepreneurship
Clearco’s own directory, consulted on 23 October 2026, lists Romanow as Co-Founder, Observer and Curtis as CEO and director. That differs from older CEO, executive-chair and board-director descriptions still circulating in speaker biographies. Her historical leadership remains part of the record without being presented as her current office.
Romanow’s significance lies in commercial experimentation, public visibility and the attempt to finance online businesses differently. Her record also shows why a biography should follow a company beyond its fundraising announcement. Product changes, retrenchment and changes in responsibility are part of the same entrepreneurial history, not footnotes to be excluded from a success story.
Quick answers
Frequently asked questions about Michele Romanow
- Is Michele Romanow still Clearco’s CEO?
- No. Andrew Curtis became CEO in January 2023. Clearco’s directory consulted on 23 October 2026 identifies Romanow as Co-Founder, Observer.
- Are Clearbanc and Clearco different companies?
- Clearbanc adopted the Clearco brand in April 2021. The rebrand accompanied a broader business proposition; it was not a second 2015 founding.
- Did Clearco’s no-equity offer mean free funding?
- No. Its historical revenue-based model involved repayment and fees without the financier taking equity. The obligations and current product terms must be distinguished from a slogan.
Keep exploring
Lives connected to this story
- Arlene Dickinson
Compare another Dragons’ Den entrepreneur’s consumer-brand support and equity investing with Clearco’s merchant-financing model.
- Jim Balsillie
Explore a different Canadian technology business and the distinction between corporate growth, financing and executive succession.
Sources and further reading
Explore the evidence
These references support the biography and offer further reading. Official records, first-person accounts and independent reporting provide different perspectives; image records document attribution and licensing.
- 1. UK Companies HouseOfficer record: June 1985 and Canadian nationality
The public register supplies month and year of birth and nationality, not a complete birth date or evidence of a current UK executive role.
- 2. The Kit13 May 2026 interview: Calgary, Saskatchewan and career
- 3. Queen’s UniversityFrom barista to dragon: degrees, ventures and television
- 4. Queen’s UniversityTea Room: student-led 2006 café
- 5. The Queen’s Journal5 April 2007: Tea Room management and student recognition
- 6. ClearcoCompany history and current directory, consulted 23 October 2026
Current company directory checked directly. Co-Founder, Observer supersedes stale present-tense CEO, executive-chair and director descriptions elsewhere.
- 7. Andrew D’Souza / Clearco21 April 2021: rebrand rationale and product ambition
- 8. Clearco / PR Newswire20 April 2021: US$100 million equity round and rebrand
- 9. OslerApril and July 2021 corporate financing transactions
- 10. Reuters / MarketScreener20 April 2021: revenue-based model and equity/debt distinction
- 11. BetaKitJanuary 2023: founders, CEO transition and layoffs
- 12. Canadian Press / CityNews16 January 2023: transition, retrenchment and layoffs
The article header is 16 January 2023; its inconsistent footer date is not adopted. BetaKit independently corroborates the January transition. Differing layoff percentages are not combined into a false precise figure.
- 13. Stephen McCarthy / Collision / Sportsfile / Wikimedia CommonsFull 2019 event photograph and reviewed CC BY 2.0 grant
Read the Collision/Sportsfile attribution, full photograph and public Flickr CC BY 2.0 review. The retained copyright credit is compatible with the licensed reuse; all named contributors remain attributed.
- 14. Creative CommonsAttribution 2.0 Generic licence
