Ottawa-based Dominion Dynamics closed Canada’s largest-ever defence-tech Series A just before our national holiday.
It’s the latest sign of Canada’s defence spending gold rush after the Government of Canada said it would pour half a trillion dollars into reducing the country’s military dependency on the US through domestic capacity.
But while venture dollars are now flowing—Crunchbase found 2026 defence funding has already blown past record-breaking 2025—Dominion and many other Canadian defence companies are still waiting for federal commitments to turn into actual contracts.
This includes the smaller firms expected to play a key role in helping Canada meet its ambitious targets, which include boosting the share of defence contracts awarded to domestic firms from 43 to 70 percent. A BDC-Icebreaker report from June indicates that a great deal of those businesses are still struggling to secure a seat at the table.
“Small companies have to take risks, and we need, as a country, to get companies to take risks,” Pence told The BetaKit Podcast, in a soon-to-be-released episode (stay tuned). “We can’t have a procurement system that over-indexes on not taking risks.”
While Pence has quickly garnered influence within the Canadian government, he still thinks there is a 50 percent chance Dominion’s first contract lands in the US, where the company plans to establish an office and subsidiary later this year.
Historic fundraising aside, it would be a troubling sign for Canada’s ability to turn financial backing into buying if the first stop on Dominion’s quest to build Canada’s defence neoprime is south of the border.
Josh Scott,
Reporter
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Feature image courtesy Dominion Dynamics. Photo by Jim Welsh.