Canadian company IRefer Club receives 2 Global Recognition Awards as customers’ online search habits change

Summary: IRefer Club has received 2026 Global Recognition Awards for Innovation and Startup of the Year as customers increasingly ask their phones and AI-assisted search tools to recommend businesses.

TORONTO, Ontario, Aug 2, 2026 — Canadian company IRefer Club has received two 2026 Global Recognition Awards, earning distinctions for Innovation and Startup of the Year. The company was recognized for its work helping businesses become easier for new customers to find as online searches increasingly move between lists, summaries and direct answers.

The change is becoming part of ordinary customer behaviour. Someone looking for a contractor, mortgage broker, restaurant or local service may type a few words, speak a complete question into a phone or ask an AI-assisted search tool for help. Sometimes the response is still a page of choices. Other times it is a summary, a recommendation or a much shorter list.

The customer may not know which technology produced the response. They may simply say, “I asked my phone.”

“When a new customer is looking for somebody, the small-business owner doesn’t care what the technology is called,” said Dean Jessop, founder and CEO of IRefer Club. “They care whether their business is one of the answers and whether the phone rings.”

That concern reaches beyond any one industry. A homeowner may ask who can repair a leaking roof nearby. A self-employed buyer may ask which mortgage broker handles difficult applications. A traveller may ask where to eat near a hotel. In each case, the customer isn’t studying the mechanics behind the response. The customer is trying to decide who to contact.

Jessop said the company’s role is straightforward.

“Small-business owners don’t need to become online search experts just to have new customers find them,” Jessop said. “They have businesses to run. Our job is to verify the information and help their business become easier to find online.”

The company’s two awards recognize different parts of that work. The Innovation distinction reflects IRefer Club’s response to changing customer behaviour and the challenge businesses face as some searches become answers rather than only pages of suggestions. The Startup of the Year distinction recognizes the work required to turn that idea into an operating company serving businesses and expanding beyond Canada.

Global Recognition Awards said IRefer Club was assessed on factors including market impact, its response to broader business challenges, adoption and its potential to change conventional approaches to small-business visibility.

“IRefer Club stood out because it took a genuinely difficult problem for small businesses and solved it with a system that is disciplined and accessible, which is exactly the kind of practical work this award was built to recognize,” said Alex Sterling, a spokesperson for Global Recognition Awards.

For Jessop, receiving both distinctions carried a meaning that one award alone could not.

“Receiving one award would have meant a great deal. Receiving two made us stop and take it in,” Jessop said. “One recognizes the idea and the problem we’re solving. The other recognizes the hard work our team has put into building the company. That combination means more to us than I can properly put into words.”

The Startup of the Year recognition also reflects that IRefer Club has moved beyond an idea on paper. The company is operating, businesses are using its service and the team has been doing the less visible work required to build a company that can grow.

“The awards give our team a reason to celebrate what we’ve built,” Jessop said. “But we’re not finished building, and we’re not finished helping. There are still so many small businesses—not just in Canada and the United States, but across Europe and the rest of the world—that deserve to be found when new customers are looking for their products and services.”