Canada’s venture market had an AI premium in 2025, and new data from Canadian law firm Osler puts numbers behind just how large that premium became.
According to the law firm’s latest Deal Points Report, AI companies captured 54 cents of every dollar invested last year, which is more than double their share the year before. Ryan Unruch, Partner at Osler and co-author of the report, believes AI was the clearest dividing line in Canada’s venture capital landscape.
“That’s a structural shift, not a blip,” Unruch told BetaKit. “AI is now the single largest industry captured by the report by both deal count and dollars invested, it’s well represented across every stage from seed through Series D, and it’s commanding premium valuations that other sectors simply cannot see.”
“The goal is simple: founders, investors, and advisors should be negotiating from real benchmarks, not gut feel.”
Osler’s annual Deal Points Report aims to turn private deal activity into practical benchmarks for Canada’s tech ecosystem. Unlike most publicly available data, Osler goes beyond the dollar figures and draws from actual transaction documents behind financings the firm advised on across Canada in 2025. This includes term sheets, share purchase agreements, shareholder agreements, secondaries, SAFEs, and convertible notes.
“The goal is simple,” Unruch said. “Founders, investors, and advisors should be negotiating from real benchmarks, not gut feel.”
Osler’s dataset tracked almost 100 separate data points across 140 preferred share financings representing $6.3 billion CAD in transaction value for 2025, a substantial sample of the $8 billion CAD reported by the Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) in the same period, and the highest amount of capital tracked by Osler in the last five years. Those data points include standard venture terms, such as pari passu liquidation preferences, as well as the average time from terms sheet to close.
“We can tell you what’s inside the round, because we helped directly negotiate every financing included in our study,” Unruch added.
For the first time this year, the report also includes a dedicated dataset of 240 SAFEs and convertible notes, with a combined value of $1.8 billion CAD. Unruch said the addition reflects just how common these instruments have become in early-stage financings, and fills a gap in the market by benchmarking terms that have historically lacked a clear standard.
“Having access to granular information on key deal terms for SAFEs and convertible notes changes how a founder negotiates a pre-seed round,” Unruch said. “Those are the data points that can help move negotiations.”
AI represented 23 percent of all financing rounds in 2025. Its year-over-year investment increase alone, at $1.96 billion CAD, was larger than the total amount raised by any other sector in the market.
Ryan Unruch, Osler
“Some of the most exciting advancements we saw in the Canadian ecosystem in 2025 were AI-driven, and the numbers bore that out.”
AI deals were up rounds at nearly twice the rate of any other sector, while representing 11 percent of down rounds. The average deal size grew 177 percent from 2023 to 2025, and median pre-money valuations for AI companies came in at roughly 60 percent above the rest of the market, while median round sizes were 50 percent above the rest of the market.
“Some of the most exciting advancements we saw in the Canadian ecosystem in 2025 were AI-driven, and the numbers bore that out,” Unruch added.
The bright spots of 2025 weren’t limited to AI. Following a quiet few years in terms of deals, FinTech accounted for one-fifth of all dollars invested, or $1.3 billion CAD in total investment, a 625 percent increase over just two years.
Over 75 percent of financings in the dataset were also up rounds last year, and for the first time, Series D and beyond accounted for 10 percent of all deals, a new high. The amount of capital raised by women-founded companies also doubled year over year to $1.4 billion CAD.
The report also points to a market finding new ways to create liquidity. Series C deals included a secondary component 60 percent of the time, while Series D and higher had secondary financings almost 30 percent of the time.
Despite the pockets of momentum, the market wasn’t operating in easy mode. US-imposed tariffs and cross-border uncertainty contributed to fewer venture dollars raised across Canada as a whole, per CVCA data. Even so, Unruch said investors stayed confident in Canadian companies, with AI carrying much of that conviction.
“The headline is AI,” Unruch said. “But the deeper story is a Canadian ecosystem that, despite all the geopolitical noise, had a strong year based on the records in our dataset.”
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Osler’s Deal Points Report offers one of the most comprehensive views available into how Canadian financings are really getting done.
For a deeper look at the data behind these dynamics, read Osler’s full 2025 report now.
Photo courtesy Arild on Flickr. Shared under Creative Commons license BY-SA 2.0