Join us in making Canada the most prosperous country in the world 🏗️🇨🇦
Joined January 2025
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All in all, this latest investment push for some of Canada's most promising startups sounds good.
But stacked up against our peers, it's not as huge as it sounds.
In 2025, Canada had only 1.2 IPOs per 10M people.
Among the G7, Canada accounted for just 1.5% of IPOs in 2025.
How much are Canadians left with in their pockets after taxes and essentials? 💸
Among major North American cities, Canada’s largest sit near the bottom of the pack for the % of median income left over for median earners.
The highest Canadian city is Ottawa in 24th place.
Build Canada retweeted
“We have been conditioned, for decades now, to flinch at identity talk and to sneer at those who raise it as a live question or problem to be resolved.
But it is vital to understand that the state capacity problems that Canada has, the reason why nothing ever gets built, why the federal government is perpetually overpromising and underdelivering, why this blessed country is not nearly as prosperous as it ought to be, all have their origins in the weakness of our national identity.
Without a story we can tell one another about our collective ambition, about the many on behalf of whom the few are asked to make sacrifices, all we are left with is the buying off of one province or region or another in order to keep the peace.”
buildcanada.substack.com/p/t…
Build Canada retweeted
Andrew Potter is one of the clearest voices in Canada.
I look forward to reading him every single week.
If Canada has a problem getting things built, a big part of the reason can be traced to our refusal to talk about our national identity.
Here's why the ‘who are we?’ question won’t go away, from Andrew Potter.
Build Canada retweeted
U.S. is taking in a lot of Canadians, with immigration numbers up 142%.
Build Canada group says brain drain is a real issue, but it has some 'bold policy choices' that it says could help nationalpost.com/news/spike-…
It’s true.
Canada is facing an IPO drought.
Canada will struggle to find another stock-market success story like Shopify as the country grapples with a public-listing drought and a delisting trend, according to Daniel Nowlan at National Bank Capital Markets bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
As proportion of GDP, 2025’s Canadian IPOs only raised about 0.045%.
That number pales in comparison to Sweden, India, and even Japan’s figures.
A lack of IPOs doesn’t intrinsically mean that Canadian companies aren’t raising money or aren’t IPO’ing on other exchanges.
But when a company like @Shopify grows 178x to-date since it’s IPO, every day Canadians get an opportunity to get in on that growth.
Build Canada retweeted
Among G7 countries, Canada has the highest share of venture capital tied to government.
In 2025, 36% of the money raised by Canadian VC funds went to funds backed by federal programs, compared to 23% in France, 8% in the UK and about 4% in the US.
The @bdc_ca allows the federal government to back Canadian entrepreneurs and fill gaps left by private lenders and investors, including by backing startups directly.
In 2025, it was the source of 3.5% of Canadian VC investment.
Across companies like @XanaduAI, @NasdaqVerafin, and @dwavequantum, the BDC's biggest wins have netted upwards of $10B USD in investor gains.
Build Canada retweeted
In the last municipal election, less than 30% of eligible voters cast a ballot.
Democracy works when everyone makes their voice heard. 🗣️
Tell a friend, tell a neighbour, tell your family: Vote! 🗳️
Build Canada retweeted
The @bdc_ca allows the federal government to back Canadian entrepreneurs and fill gaps left by private lenders and investors, including by backing startups directly.
In 2025, it was the source of 3.5% of Canadian VC investment.
Across companies like @XanaduAI, @NasdaqVerafin, and @dwavequantum, the BDC's biggest wins have netted upwards of $10B USD in investor gains.
Build Canada retweeted
🇨🇦 just launched a $1.75B VC push via BDC.
Split across 2 programs & 5 streams, it's been years in the making (and is likely still a few from actual investment).
Funds will flow through private fund managers, & only the $700M fund-of-funds stream is open for applications.
🧵
Ottawa kicks off process to give $1.75-billion boost to venture capital sector
theglobeandmail.com/business…
The new $750M program went through a months-long lobbying fight.
Angel investors wanted all of it for pre-seed and seed. They got $75M. The other 90%, $675M, goes to late-stage scale-ups.
The big catch? Speed.
The $1B Growth VCCI took 22 months just to open applications. The last round had already picked its fund managers by month 18.
In that sense, this investment is already running behind. Managers likely won’t be chosen until spring 2027, and businesses probably won’t see actual investments before 2028.
It's a solid step, but it drags behind the timelines we'd hope for.
It’s bigger than the federal government's last three VC rounds combined: $1.75B vs. $1.21B committed in 2013, 2017, and 2021. Still ahead after inflation, too.
Those earlier rounds put $1.2B into funds that went on to invest $6.4B in Canadian companies.
🇨🇦 just launched a $1.75B VC push via BDC.
Split across 2 programs & 5 streams, it's been years in the making (and is likely still a few from actual investment).
Funds will flow through private fund managers, & only the $700M fund-of-funds stream is open for applications.
🧵
Ottawa kicks off process to give $1.75-billion boost to venture capital sector
theglobeandmail.com/business…
Compensation data via: dais.ca/reports/mind-the-gap…
