Canadian angel investment has fallen to levels not seen since the COVID-19 pandemic. But more women than ever are participating in those investments, according to the National Angel Capital Organization (NACO)’s 2026 Report on Angel Investing in Canada.
The report found that Canadian angel investors deployed nearly $114 million across 490 investments in 2025, marking another decline for angel investing and erasing 2024’s partial recovery from what NACO calls the “2023 trough.”
“The pre-seed and seed stages are where the next generation of Canadian growth, employment, and innovation begins, and they are also the stages most exposed when investor sentiment turns cautious.”
Last year’s 490 deals marked a 20-percent year-over-year decline and the second-lowest deal count in five years, only beating that 2023 slump. Meanwhile, capital deployed declined by 22 percent from 2024, making 2025 the worst year for capital deployment in that same five-year period.
While data on the overall venture market last year indicated similar deal compression, resulting in generally larger deals for fewer players, angel investments saw an even greater decline. According to NACO’s report, the average investment size per deal in 2025 was also the lowest of the past five years, at approximately $232,000.
“The headwinds of 2025, including trade tensions, tighter capital markets, and macroeconomic uncertainty, heavily impacted the earliest stages of the capital continuum, where private capital is most at risk,” the report reads. “The pre-seed and seed stages are where the next generation of Canadian growth, employment, and innovation begins, and they are also the stages most exposed when investor sentiment turns cautious.”
However, NACO said that over the $1.92 billion in cumulative angel investment it has tracked since 2010, women’s participation has never been higher. Forty percent of members in reporting Canadian angel networks are women, NACO said; a significant jump from 14 percent in 2017 and a note higher than the five-year average of 35.4 percent.
NACO says the overall depressed angel investment market supports its proposal for the $750 million earmarked in the 2025 federal budget “to support Canadian firms facing early growth-stage funding gaps.” Its proposal calls for matching seed investments and helping “professionalize” early-stage organizations.
The proof, according to NACO, is that Northern Ontario outperforms all other regions in average cheque size and on a per-capita basis (35.9 deals per million compared to Southern Ontario’s trailing 21.9 deals per million). The report says this lead reflects the “depth and durability of organized angel infrastructure in the region,” supported by predictable federal regional development funding.
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NACO’s report data rivals that of the Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA), which has its own proposal for the budgeted $750 million. While NACO’s 2025 data paints early-stage funding as dire, recent CVCA data instead says early-stage is benefiting greatly from a concentrated venture market, while growth-stage deals see next to no activity. It’s worth noting, however, that CVCA classifies early-stage all the way up to the Series B level, while NACO’s angels primarily handle pre-seed and seed-stage funding.
Feature image courtesy NACO.