The Canadian Venture Capital Association has released its report on Canadian venture capital and private equity activity for the first half of 2017.
Data in the report was sourced from the CVCA InfoBase, which contains 2,800 venture capital and private equity deals across over 2,600 Canadian companies.
$1.6 billion was invested over 260 deals in the first half of 2017, compared to H1 2016, when $1.7 billion was invested across 275 deals. Q1 2017 saw $713 million invested, while Q2 saw $913 million invested over 131 deals, a 28 percent spike in activity.
The first two quarters of 2017 saw 21 exits totaling $900 million, compared to 32 exits totalling $584 million last year. The largest exit in 2017 was the $393 million acquisition of Montreal-based Luxury Retreats International by Airbnb. CVCA says that two VC-backed IPOs — Real Matters and Zymeworks — signalled a rebound of the IPO market through the first half of the year.
“We are now seeing a much-needed rebound in exits against increasing investment levels,” said Mike
Woollatt, CEO of the CVCA. “This bodes well for fundraising, and investment levels in the future – particularly as the new VCCI program comes on line.”
The top 10 VC deals accounted for $540 million (59 percent) of total dollars disbursed in Q2 2017, slightly higher than the 56 percent share of total dollars disbursed in both Q1 2017 ($410 million out of $713 million) and Q2 2016 ($400 million out of $712 million). Element AI was named for its record $137.5 million round.
The average deal size in Q2 2017 spiked to $7 million, up 26 percent from the previous quarter ($5.5 million). Q2 2017 also overshadows the average deal sizes in 2013 ($5.2 million), 2014 ($4.7 million), 2015 ($4.2 million) and 2016 ($6 million).
Ontario-based companies received $620 million in VC dollars invested in H1, 38 percent of total VC investment. Quebec received roughly a third at $544 million, while British Columbia investment accounted for a quarter of all dollars invested at $410 million.
On the city level, Toronto-based companies received 67% ($415 million over 74 deals) of dollars disbursed to Ontario-based companies, followed by Ottawa at 10% ($64 million over 11 deals) and Kitchener/Waterloo at eight percent ($49 million over 12 deals)
The full report is available on the CVCA website.