Investor Shelf
Library/CVCA

The 50 2025: A Guide to the Canadian Venture Capital Ecosystem (CVCA)

Save
ReportCVCAJanuary 2025116 pages174 min readOriginal source
Key number
$6.5 billion
Invested into 426 deals, year-to-date Q3 2024 p.8
Largest segment
$3.8 billion
ICT investment across 201 deals, the largest sector by dollars p.22
What changed
44%
Increase in average deal size from 2023 to $15.2M p.19

Summary

  • As of year-to-date Q3 2024, Canadian VCs invested $6.5 billion across 426 deals.p.8
  • In Q3 alone, $2.6 billion was invested across 130 deals, driven by a record-breaking $1.24 billion Series F for Clio.p.6
  • Ontario led with 40% of all deals and 36% of total dollars invested, while Quebec contributed 20% of deals with 85 transactions and $1.5B.p.9
  • Canada recorded 21 mega deals ($50M+) year-to-date, driving the average deal size up by 44% from 2023 to $15.2M.p.19
  • Exit activity totalled $4.6B across 30 exits, with M&A making up 90% of exits and contributing $4.3B, while VC-backed IPOs remained absent.p.20
  • Pre-seed investments dropped to $64M across 77 deals, seed funding decreased to $386M over 141 deals, and early-stage investment reached $2.5B across 134 deals.p.21

Key insights

  1. The Venture Capital Action Plan, launched in 2013, attracted over $1.4 billion, with $1 billion sourced from private-sector investors.p.10
  2. The Venture Capital Catalyst Initiative, introduced in 2017 with an initial $400 million, attracted over $1.76 billion in capital, and was renewed in 2021 with an additional $450 million.p.10
  3. ICT investment reached $3.8B across 201 deals, Life Sciences raised $939M from 98 deals, Cleantech climbed to $980M and Agribusiness decreased to $130M across 32 deals.p.22
  4. Later-stage investments declined to $1.3B across 36 deals, the lowest share on record at 21% of all dollars invested, while growth equity surged to $1.5B across 7 deals.p.21
  5. As of 2023, 6% of Canadian public companies generating over CAD $1 billion in revenue were strategically leveraging corporate venture capital.p.24
  6. BDC Capital has over $8 billion under management and is Canada's most active venture capital investor.p.12
  7. Alberta Enterprise Corporation has committed C$400.1 million to thirty-eight venture capital funds as of September 2024.p.13
  8. InBC is investing $500 million over the next several years in British Columbia companies.p.14

Funders mentioned

Accelia CapitalActive Impact InvestmentsAlberta Enterprise CorporationAmplify CapitalAmplitude VenturesAnges QuébecAQC CapitalAtlanta VenturesBain CapitalBCF Ventures

Topics and entities

Corporate venture capitalM&A and exitsPrivate marketsPublic funding and grantsStartup ecosystemsStartup fundingVenture capitalAlberta Enterprise CorporationBDC CapitalClioCVCAExport Development CanadaHarbourVestInBCKensington Capital PartnersNAventuresRBC Capital PartnersTELUS Global VenturesTrade Commissioner ServiceVenture Ontario

Summary and figures generated from the document and checked automatically: every number shown appears on the cited page. The full document is available from the publisher. Publishers can request removal.