The session follows a nine-month consultation with over 250 senior leaders across Canada's innovation economy, drawing on new research revealing the structural funding gaps pushing founders out of the country — with 68% of Canadian-founded startups now being started outside Canada.

NACO CEO Claudio Rojas and Director of Operations Lisa Graston present two concrete recommendations for the $750 million envelope, joined by five senior leaders with front-row seats to Canada's early-stage ecosystem:

• Hans Knapp, Co-Founder and Partner, Yaletown Partners (Vancouver)
• Alex MacBeath, Founder and Managing Partner, Island Capital Partners (Charlottetown)
• Carollynn Schafer, Co-Founder and General Partner, Okanagan WMAN (Kelowna)
• Jacques LaPointe, Co-Founding Partner, Metiquity Ventures (Calgary)
• Shelley Kuipers, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, The51 (Calgary)

The discussion covers the research findings from Seeding Growth, why the $750 million early-stage envelope is the single highest-leverage policy instrument in the Venture Capital Strategy, NACO's two implementation recommendations to government, and how angel networks, fund managers, founders, and ecosystem partners can shape what comes next.

Recorded April 7, 2026. The full white paper is available at nacocanada.com.

In this National Roundtable hosted by Claudio Rojas, CEO of the National Angel Capital Organization (NACO), leaders from across the capital pipeline examine the structural gaps limiting Canada’s early-stage growth — and what it will take to close them.

Following a nine-month consultation process with more than 250 ecosystem leaders — and in the context of the federal government’s $750 million commitment in Budget 2025 — this discussion explores the foundational role of pre-seed and seed capital in shaping later-stage outcomes.

The data shows that between 2019 and 2024, Canada’s top startup ecosystems lost $66 billion in value relative to global peers, representing 133,000 fewer high-quality jobs. A $141M gap at seed and pre-seed — and a $181M gap at Series A — confirms what this community has long understood:

Series A gaps are inherited from seed-stage deficits. Strengthen the foundation, and the benefits cascade forward.

Featuring:

• Sandi Gilbert (InterGen)

• Janet Bannister (Staircase Ventures)

• Solon Angel (Remitian)

• Rachel Zimmer (Simple Ventures)

• Émilie Boutros (TandemLaunch)

• Ian Lane (Northern Ontario Angels)

• Randall Howard (Adrenaline Fund / Archangel Network of Funds)

This conversation examines the end-to-end capital pipeline required to fuel Canada’s next wave of high-growth companies — and the leadership required to build it.

Learn more at vision.nacocanada.com.

As provinces begin to slowly open up, the longer-term economic realities are starting to take hold. 

In a recent survey conducted by the Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI), 76%  of  respondents  said that without capital and customers, their companies will continue to be reliant on government relief programs to sustain themselves and their workers. 

Compounding this issue is the lack of available capital in both the current environment, which was already an issue in emerging ecosystems prior to the crisis.

In preparing NACO’s Canadian Angel Activity Report, to be released next month, our research indicates that angel investment activity continues to be distributed unevenly across Canada. Central Canada (Ontario and Quebec) account for 86% of investments compared with 13% in Western Canada and 1% in Atlantic Canada. Central Canada’s dominance is even greater in terms of the amount invested, accounting for 94% of the total. 

Big cities do not have a monopoly on great founders or world-class companies. 

When entrepreneurs in emerging ecosystems don’t have adequate access to local capital, as a nation – we miss the opportunity to produce more world-class companies like Skip the Dishes in Winnipeg, Slack in Vancouver, Solium in Calgary, and Verafin in St. John’s. 

According to Entrevestor, most funding generated by Atlantic Canadian companies comes from outside the region. 

St. John’s based Verafin - supported by local investor Mark Dobbin from Killick Capital and Toronto-based Information Venture Partners - speaks to the importance of national connectivity between regions - and the power of local capital within an integrated national funding continuum. The combined effect of local angel investors in St. John’s and venture capital from Southern Ontario, is Verafin – a company that has 300 employees in Canada, over $100 million in annual recurring revenue, and this past September announced the completion of a $515 million equity and debt recapitalization. 

Verafin is a massive Canadian success story. 

What does all this have to do with unlocking government funding to survive the crisis?

As has been discussed in past roundtables, the current focus of the policy response is emergency relief – with the view that later, weeks or months from now, the role of startups in the “economic recovery” will move into greater focus. However, if high growth companies don’t survive the crisis, there will be nothing to recover from. Startups in particular are at risk with a lack of financing options available to them. 

That said recent announcements to extend relief to pre-revenue companies is promising. And we commend the government on their efforts. But the point still needs to be made ––– 

Without startups there are no scale-ups. Without angels, there is no funnel of high growth companies for venture capital. 

In our last roundtable Janet Bannister, Managing Partner at Real Ventures, referred to the narrow focus on scale-ups in recent years, as equivalent to Canada producing a strong cohort of graduate students, and pulling back support for earlier education. 

In the economic recovery following the crisis, we need an even stronger and more vibrant pipeline of startups than existed in the past, to produce a stronger and more robust wave of scale-ups and high growth companies to lead the economic recovery.

The stakes are high and Canada’s economic future hangs in the balance. 

“We will need Canadian entrepreneurs to lead the way and we’ll need angel investors to activate capital to support them. And while the innovation sector is playing a key role in the fight against COVID-19, we know that the economic shutdown has had a significant impact on early-stage companies. During these uncertain times, they are the kind of businesses that are facing supply-chain disruptions, cashflow issues, a collapse in demand and even an inability to maintain staff. What’s more, because they are at the start-up stage, they likely do not qualify for other wage subsidies or liquidity measures. That’s why we decided to inject $250 million in new funding into the National Research Council's Industrial Research Assistance Program to assist innovative early-stage companies that are unable to access existing COVID-19 business supports.”

—Ali Ehsassi

—Janet Bannister

“We really need also to remember that when you think about women as a whole, there’s significant underrepresentation of women of color, Aboriginal women, LGBTQ women.

These are sisters who I want to include in our fund because by teaching and training and deploying their capital, what we’re going to see are stronger female founders supported. We’re also going to see men thinking about investing in female-led companies.”

–Cathy Bennett

“We are 51 percent of the population. So there’s an opportunity to unlock our capital, our innovation and our spending power. It’s going to be a huge economic force and economic engine inside of Canada to really help drive that transformation and that diversification. And if we think about women today, there’s a wealth transfer going on. So over the next 10 years, women will amass much more wealth and capital that needs to be deployed.”

–Shelley Kuipers

“The measures that our government has taken — and the speed of those policy responses — are extraordinary and they deserve to be commended. That said, gaps remain, and we need to fill them quickly or we risk seeing Canadian entrepreneurs and the organizations that support them fall behind or, worse, close their doors”

Originally Recorded on April 30, 2020. Click here to join future roundtables.

The government needs to define problems, not prescribe solutions. That means changing that old way of procurement to empower the problem-solving capacity of our tech sector and our innovators.”

Originally Recorded on April 23, 2020. Click here to join future roundtables.

The National Angel Capital Organization (NACO), in partnership with HaloHealth (Canada’s first physician-led angel network) was proud to host a collaborative roundtable on Thursday April 23 that featured an esteemed group of industry insiders who shared insights about the state of the med-tech ecosystem in light of COVID-19. This session — the fourth in the popular weekly series delivered by NACO — brought together experts in early-stage startups, angel investors and physicians on the frontlines to discuss the incredible need for innovative solutions to help the country’s 89,000 doctors (and thousands more healthcare providers) better serve Canadians.

We know that your collective strength can help us find solutions and shape policies that have impact. We have entrepreneurs, angel investors, angel groups, incubators, accelerators — champions of Canada’s innovation economy from around the country listening in and contributing to these discussions.

 Originally Recorded on April 23, 2020. Click here to join future roundtables.

We are now going to move into the next portion of our program where we hope to explore these ideas in further conversation. 

Participants included:

Angel Investors

• Serge Beauchemin, CEO at Anges Québec Capital (Montréal)
• Judy Fairburn, Co-founder of The51 (Calgary)
• Sam Elfassy, Physician and Founder at HaloHealth (Toronto)

Entrepreneurs

• Alexandra T. Greenhill, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer at Careteam (Vancouver)
• Naheed Kurji, Co-Founder, President and CEO of Cyclica (Toronto)
• Julie Angus, Founder and CEO at Open Ocean Robotics (Vancouver)

Innovation Leaders

• Yung Wu, CEO at MaRS Discovery District (Toronto)
• Michelle Simms, President and CEO at Genesis (St. John's, NL)
• Jeff White, CEO at New Brunswick Innovation Foundation (St. John, NB)

Quotes

Big-picture government response: The Honourable Mélanie Joly  

“The first priority is to keep Canadians healthy, as we are all flattening the curve. We need to make sure people are able to follow the strict rules and strict recommendations of our public health officials. I would say this is our biggest economic measure—the more we’re able to flatten the curve on the health risks, the more we’re able to flatten the curve on the economic risks.” 

“Our second priority is having a people-first approach. What we did was massively expand the definition of EI and we created a new benefit—the Canada Emergency Response Benefit. We wanted to expand the social safety net in order for people not to fall through the cracks and to make sure we wouldn’t be increasing inequities at the end of this crisis.” Melanie 

“We also came up with the CEBA (Canada Emergency Business Account) program, which is for businesses that had wages between $20,000 and $1.5 million. I’ve never seen policies developed as fast as we’re doing right now. We know we have to be fast and nimble.” 

Proposed solutions for government from industry leaders: Yung Wu

“I commend the government for acting quickly to mobilize a massive response to this crisis—leadership has been truly impressive. But I’d like to be really candid here because we don’t have time to be polite right now: Operationally, that response has fallen short and, in particular, it’s fallen short in the tech sector. Most of our most promising companies are not yet backed by banks—they’re not yet backed by later-stage venture capital firms. They’re pre-revenue and backed by angels or are growing their companies by acquiring new customers or markets. I recommend that the government immediately grant blanket acceptance into the wage subsidy program for founders and employees who are part of a recognized accelerator or incubator, or who are backed by angels from a recognized angel organization.” 

Final remarks: The Honourable Mélanie Joly  

“To thrive in the business world, you have to be extremely optimistic. My message to you is to continue to keep that optimistic approach and know that things will get better and we will be helping you cross the bridge to get on the other shore. The future will be brighter.” 

 Originally Recorded on April 16, 2020. Click here to join future roundtables.<

Today’s agenda includes Opening Comments by David Skok, CEO & Editor-in-Chief at The Logic, Special Remarks by Anthony Lacavera, Founder and Chairman of Globalive. And an important conversation with The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages –– with angel investors, innovation leaders and most importantly entrepreneurs.

The National Angel Capital Organization (NACO) was honoured to host a collaborative roundtable on Thursday April 16 that featured an impressive selection of industry insiders who shared insights about the current state of the innovation ecosystem in light of COVID-19. The discussion also revolved around specific, tangible ways the Canadian government can better assist early-stage entrepreneurs and angel investors weather the current economic storm. 

This session—the third in a now-popular series delivered by NACO every Thursday—included experts “united in attacking the economic effects that are impacting all sectors and level of society,” said Claudio Rojas, CEO of NACO. “If we focus on helping each other, cognizant of the effects we’re experiencing as individuals and organizations, we can better find new ways to collaborate and help the ecosystem.” 

The 90-minute roundtable was virtually attended by people in each province and territory across the country and presented a solid focus: building solutions to help entrepreneurs during this unprecedented time. “We hear you. We know your collective strength can help us find new solutions and shape policies that can drive the innovation ecosystem forward,” Rojas said. Attendees were also privileged to listen to remarks by the Honourable Mélanie Joly, Canada’s Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, who explained the federal government’s ongoing economic response to the pandemic. 

The respected roster of speakers—angel investors, entrepreneurs and innovation leaders—shared candid tales of their current state, and offered Minister Joly well-informed suggestions of concrete ways Canada’s government can help the ecosystem’s most vulnerable entrepreneurs and startups. 

 “If we move too slowly in supporting startups or focus too narrowly on scale-ups, the innovation ecosystem itself and its interconnectedness will unravel and Canada will, once again, lag behind,” Rojas said. “Or we can take bold action, make bold moves and emerge in the aftermath as a country the whole world looks to for leadership.”  

1)    State of the union: David Skok

“This isn’t really a time for fiscal restraint—this is a time for spending. This is the biggest collapse of the economic order since the Great Depression and if spending doesn’t happen soon, there is a chance we could experience a lost decade” 

“There has never been a more necessary time for entrepreneurs and angels to work together to build a foundation of a new economy.”  

2)    Proposed solutions for government from industry leaders

“What the government can do in a straight-forward way is to support the construction of a world-class angel investor ecosystem in Canada that will drive our overall innovation ecosystem.” –Anthony Lacavera

“I would like to see income tax deductibility for qualifying angel investments in the pre-seed stage that have been accepted into a recognized incubator or accelerator. Any company that’s in one of recognized incubators or accelerators that’s doing a seed or pre-seed financing and has angel investor participation—those angels should qualify for straight-forward income tax deductibility for those investments.” –Anthony Lacavera

 Originally Recorded on April 16, 2020. Cli

Originally Recorded on April 9, 2020. Click here to join future roundtables.

Originally Recorded on April 9, 2020. Click here to join future roundtables.

To the entrepreneurs on this call, the angel community is here to support you. We are in constant contact and communication with all those stakeholders that are ready and willing to support your companies. We are moving as quickly as we can to collaborate with policymakers to keep funds flowing into your companies, so that you can keep your employees employed, and so that you can keep building your great companies.

When we look at past economic crises, new global companies emerged. And in the aftermath, and we are committed to helping that next wave of global companies emerge from Canada.

Originally Recorded on April 2, 2020. Click here to join future roundtables.

Both Jacopo and Pat lead the equivalent organizations of NACO in their respective jurisdictions (Europe and the U.S.). We also have Colin Mason, Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Glasgow.

Colin is the author of NACO's Annual Angel Activity Report and brings unique perspectives on how angel activity varies over time, along with insights on what we can expect in the current environment. And perspectives on how we can help mobilize more angel capital, which is badly needed by the entrepreneurs that are struggling to keep their companies afloat...

France, announced a ‎€ 4 billion plan, Germany is getting ready to announce € 2 billion to help startups. And there's a mix of solutions here…. covering salaries.. loans at very low rates or even zero rates… and finally, matching equity investments - Jacopo Losso, Director Secretariat at European Business Angels Network

There's a lot of talk about predatory behavior by large companies and hedge funds seeking to buy up individual companies under financial pressure –Colin Mason, Professor of Entrepreneurship at University of Glasgow

Early indicators at that angel groups are  pulling back. They're focusing first on the portfolio companies that they have –Pat Ghouin, CEO at U.S. Angel Capital Association

Originally Recorded on April 2, 2020. Click here to join future roundtables.

Also, joining is Derrick Hunter, President and CEO at Bluesky Equities based in Calgary, Alberta. Derrick was recognized this past year as the BDC Angel Investor of the Year at the NACO World Angel Investment Summit and is a member of Valhalla Angels.

We also have Lynn Davis, Chair at SWO Angels based in Southwestern Ontario and part of the angel cluster called Equation Angels.

Derrick, as an active angel investor, what are you seeing on the ground in Alberta? And let me set the stage here. The innovation ecosystem in Alberta was emerging in a significant way after years of work, including NACO being quite active in the region. But, there were also challenges in the broader environment.

Are we at risk of the startup and scaleup ecosystem losing the momentum that we built up over these past years? It would be great if you could also situate us around the policy environment and what you're seeing within your portfolio. 

[Derrick Hunter] 
I will talk about the policy environment and then about some data from within our portfolio.

Last October in the provincial budget, Alberta slashed the provincial component of Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) and also its Investor Tax Credit (ITC), which made Alberta the only province without SR&ED. And to my knowledge, the only jurisdiction in the developed world that doesn’t support entrepreneurs through the tax system specifically. As a result, they took a lot of heat from a lot of people.  In December, they created what they called the Innovation Capital Working Group...

Originally Recorded on April 2, 2020. Click here to join future roundtables.

Entrepreneurs, many of whom have put everything on the line, are struggling to stay solvent, cutting expenses, and laying off workers. The future has never. Then more uncertain. Government officials are working tirelessly to keep the economy functioning while instituting necessary measures to protect Canadians.

Today's Roundtable includes global, national, and regional leaders from across the early stage capital ecosystem. We have over 350 listeners. We're going to move rapidly, taking stock of the current state of angel activity and gathering insights on policy responses to sustain the future of Canada's innovation economy.

Bringing a policy perspective to this discussion are Senator Colin Deacon and Professor Thomas Hellmann. 

Colin Deacon, Senator in the Parliament of Canada from Halifax, Nova Scotia is an innovative thinker who spent his career turning ideas into products and services prior to joining the Canadian Senate. 

Dr. Thomas Hellmann is the DP World Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. He has been an advisor consultant to the World Economic Forum, Barclays Bank, the Government of British Columbia, and numerous startup companies. His case studies on entrepreneurial companies and venture financing bring a unique perspective on policy issues and potential response.

 Originally Recorded on April 2, 2020. Click here to join future roundtables.