Canada’s VCs were abuzz online this week following the release of the CVCA’s Q1 2025 venture report. You should read Madison McLauchlan’s story below, which notes that deal count has plummeted sharply back to pandemic lows, particularly in the early stage.
Depending on which VC you ask, the data reflects either the death of domestic venture capital or a mirror image of recent US performance. Whatever the reason for the decline, the report notes that “early investments are the pipeline for future growth.” Without them, where will that growth come from?
One source of positive energy is Alberta, which beat out BC for the third spot in total investment for the quarter and can now claim the second-highest average deal size in the country. It’s a continuation of the province’s strong 2024 and another signal of Alberta’s rapid tech growth over the last decade.
News of the stellar results comes at the perfect time, as the province prepares to host Canadian tech across two different events: Alberta Innovates’ Inventures and Amii’s Upper Bound AI conference.
BetaKit is the proud media partner of both events, and you’ll find me and BetaKit CEO Siri Agrell on stage in Calgary and Edmonton (check the schedules for full details, but whatever you do, don’t miss Siri’s conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk on the BetaKit Main Stage at Inventures).
Upper Bound tickets are sold out, but you can still sneak into Inventures using the discount code INVSPKR20.
Madison will be there with us, filing stories from both cities. It’s our mission at BetaKit to tell the story of every Canadian tech hub and connect those stories to the national conversation. I think you’ll like the stories coming out of Alberta this week.
Have an Alberta tech story we should tell? Email me.
Douglas Soltys
Editor-in-chief
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Robinhood to buy WonderFi for $250 million CAD as US trading platform targets Canadian expansion
After spending years gobbling up other Canadian cryptocurrency companies, Toronto-based WonderFi has agreed to be acquired by American trading platform Robinhood Markets in an approximately $250 million CAD deal.
The acquisition stands to give Robinhood a beachhead in the Canadian crypto market, and a jumping-off point from which it can bring its broader FinTech product suite into the country. WonderFi’s leadership and entire 115-person team will join Robinhood Crypto’s Canadian workforce.
Following the acquisition, BetaKit sat down for interviews with WonderFi president and CEO Dean Skurka and Robinhood Crypto SVP Johann Kerbrat to discuss the deal and where crypto, WonderFi, and Canada fit into Robinhood’s overall strategy.
Coinbase Canada CEO pushes for crypto-friendly government just as company reveals hack that could cost up to $400 million USD
On stage at the inaugural Consensus conference in Toronto this week (which won’t return to the city in 2026), Coinbase Canada CEO Lucas Matheson reiterated his company’s six requests for policy and regulatory changes he said could help Canada become a global crypto leader, arguing that federal leadership needs to take crypto seriously or risk falling behind other nations.
But the cyberattack Coinbase announced this week undercuts that message.
The US-based crypto exchange revealed it received a ransom demand from an unknown threat actor who claimed to have information about some customer accounts and internal documents. In a regulatory filing, Coinbase forecast a cost of between $180 million and $400 million USD to recover from the incident.
Seed deals in Q1 2025 hit pandemic-era low as Canadian VC decline continues: report
Canadian VC investment levels in Q1 2025 remained consistent year to year but saw a steep drop in deal count as investors navigated trade uncertainty, according to a new report.
While average deal size grew, investments at the earliest stages slowed, continuing a trend that CVCA CEO Kim Furlong called “worrisome” last fall. This quarter, pre-seed activity hit the lowest dollar level invested in a quarter since 2021, while seed activity saw the lowest number of deals closed since 2020.
Rethinking the relationship between government and entrepreneur support organizations
In recent months, the abrupt termination of entrepreneurship support programs, particularly in Québec, has sent shockwaves through Canada’s innovation ecosystem: teams decimated, services interrupted, and hundreds of entrepreneurs left without crucial support.
Beyond the legitimate emotional reactions, this situation reveals a fundamental problem: the danger of building an entire ecosystem singularly dependent on government funding.
Cohere revenue reports paint mixed picture of growth
As one report says Cohere has crossed a key revenue milestone, another suggests that the enterprise-focused AI startup is lagging on its projected revenue growth.
Reuters’s report that Cohere has reached $100 million USD in annualized revenue would propel the startup to centaur status. But the milestone could come as a consolation prize to investors, who were expecting much higher revenue at this point, according to The Information.
While Cohere declined to comment on the revenue reports, it did confirm that it has acquired Vancouver-based AI agent startup Cognosys. Cognosys raised a $2-million seed round in 2023 with backing from two of Cohere’s executives, Aidan Gomez and Ivan Zhang.
Mélanie Joly, Evan Solomon to run newly split Industry and Innovation portfolios in Prime Minister Carney’s cabinet
Mark Carney split up the role of the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Industry as part of his cabinet shuffle this week. The newly elected Prime Minister named Mélanie Joly as Minister of Industry, while Toronto Centre MP Evan Solomon becomes the first Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation.
Both of the newly-named ministers are also now among the members of Build Canada. No, not that one: the PM has established a 13-person cabinet committee with the same name as the policy platform, Build Canada, to “consider issues relating to building a strong economy that positions Canada to be competitive and productive.”
The policy platform team noted the establishment of its namesake cabinet committee in an X post, saying “There is much more to do, but let’s celebrate the wins when they come.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford did not deliver the innovation budget tech leaders wanted
The Government of Ontario has delivered a 2025 budget lacking the innovation commitments dozens of CEOs requested in an open letter to Premier Doug Ford earlier this year.
The most notable commitment is an additional $90 million in VC funding for provincial investment vehicle Venture Ontario. CCI Ontario director Skaidra Puodžiūnas said in a statement that the industry advocacy group was “encouraged” by the commitment, but “Overall, the budget fell short of the transformational leadership this moment demands.”
The US economic slowdown is hurting Canadian tech companies selling globally
Since February, many Canadian tech companies have seen their costs rise due to tariffs and associated uncertainty. Now, the resulting economic downturn is slowing sales for companies that indirectly sell into US markets, including software firms whose products are not directly subject to tariffs.
Mississauga-based SOTI has seen shrinking business opportunities as a result. With 17,000 clients worldwide, SOTI CEO Carl Rodrigues knows his company isn’t alone.
“If anybody tells you that they’re not affected by the tariffs, and they’re a decent-sized company, they don’t know what’s going on in their company,” Rodrigues told BetaKit.
FEATURED STORIES FROM OUR PARTNERS
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- Fragmented across thousands of protocols, and riddled with cryptic structures, blockchain data changes constantly. With the support of AWS, Canada’s Validation Cloud is building an AI-powered Bloomberg for Web3. Read about the simple answers they’re providing from complex blockchain data.
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🇨🇦 Weekly Canadian Deals, Dollars & More
- VAN – Veritree secures $9.1M Series A round
- VAN – Verdi raises $6.5M in seed capital
- VAN – Well Health reports healthy Q1 revenue
- CGY – Imperial Oil donates $37M lab to SAIT
- CGY – OCIF dispenses $3.5M through new Express funding stream
- KW – Velocity Fund II secures initial $14M close
- WND – Redstick Ventures closes $6.5M for foodtech fund
- TOR – Intrepid Labs emerges from stealth with $15.4M
- TOR – Una Software raises $6.1M more in seed funding
- TOR – Amplify adds partner Craig Hunter while raising third fund
- TOR – Healwell reports record revenue in Q1 2025
- OTT – Shopify stocks surge ahead of joining Nasdaq 100 index
The BetaKit Podcast — Why Faire’s co-founder wants to bring Silicon Valley’s DNA to Canada
“I think every ecosystem is different, but we can learn a lot from Silicon Valley, and we can merge what we have here.”
Faire co-founder and Chief Architect Marcelo Cortes explains his journey from Brazil to Canada, how working in Kitchener-Waterloo connected him to Silicon Valley, and the process of applying the lessons learned there to his company. We also discuss how Faire’s wholesale marketplace for retailers is navigating the trade war, its use of AI, and how it convinced former Uber CTO Thuan Pham to join the company.
Take The BetaKit Quiz – This week: New VC data, Shopify’s new index, Canada’s new cabinet
Think you’re on top of Canadian tech and innovation news? Time to prove it. Test your knowledge of Canadian tech news with The BetaKit Quiz for May 16, 2025.
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Feature image courtesy Ahmed Zalabany via Unsplash.