Venture capital activity in Canada hit an all-time record high in the first quarter, with $3.5 billion in investment across 213 deals, up from $3 billion (across 276 deals) in the year-earlier quarter, according to the latest KPMG Private Enterprise Venture Pulse Q1 2022 report.
Canadian start-ups in particular raised $824.4 million in the first three months of the year – a period marked by global uncertainty due to the war in Ukraine, rising inflation and interest rates, continued supply chain pressures and the persistence of the Covid-19 pandemic. A majority of that total funding came from Toronto-based software firm, which raised US$650 million in a Series C round.
Similar to the global and US VC landscape, Canada continues to attract significant VC investment in the technology space, which accounted for 105 of the 213 deals. The majority of deals were in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (30 deals) valued at over $1.2 billion, followed closely by fintech (28), the report notes.
