Innovated by Canada

Quiet. Modest. Understated. Canadian business culture trended in that direction for years. But in a volatile market, business leaders say it's time for Canada to shift gears and get louder — much louder.

In brief

• Canada’s innovation advantage grows when commercialization is treated as a core capability with clear pathways from lab to market and from pilots to scale.
• Better results come when teams protect what they’re building — especially IP and data. Just as important: align incentives and policies so it’s easier to adopt in-market and scale into exports.
• Look to partnerships with capital customers and global channels to scale faster while improving productivity with responsible AI.

 Erin Bury embraced Canadian positioning when building Willful, the estate planning platform she co-founded in 2017.

“Being focused on Canada has only been an opportunity for us,” Bury says. “We have great partnerships with folks, like a US-based estate planning startup, because they’re firmly only in the US and we’re firmly only in Canada. That opens up partnership opportunities across borders.”

Willful actively sought Canadian vendors and software providers in light of shifting trade dynamics. That operational philosophy is now core to the company she’s grown alongside her husband. They’ve created a simple, affordable, tech-driven way for people to prepare wills and power of attorney documents. They’re proud of how Willful continues to foster Canada’s tech ecosystem.

“When possible, we’ve tried to redirect spending to Canadian alternatives,” Bury  says. “We use Ada, which is a Canadian AI chatbot provider that powers our chatbot.”

That’s a vision EY Canada’s Dr. Lance Mortlock can get behind. Managing Partner of the firm’s Industrial & Energy Practice, he’s also authored two books on building business resilience and success in spite of volatility. Mortlock sees how effectively Canada has honed its reputation as a resource-based economy. He is also quick to point out the ways tech founders, as well as private and public sector allies, can transform Canada’s brand as an innovation hub in similarly compelling ways.

“This country should be powerful,” Mortlock says. “Other nations look at us and see we’ve got the muscles and minerals needed for electrification. We have a very intelligent, well-educated workforce. Oil, gas, uranium. There are so many reasons we can drive the shift from made-in-Canada to innovated-in-Canada. I am optimistic about that. But we have to set out with purpose and intentionally invest in the tech ecosystem nationally to realize that potential.”

At the foundational level, Canada has a strong footing to support innovative growth. The country ranked 14th in the 2024 Global Innovation Index — the nation’s strongest performance in more than a decade. Universities here came fourth globally for quality, giving companies a competitive edge.

Canada’s multinational enterprises generate four out of five high-tech patents from domestic entities, demonstrating significant intellectual property development. What’s more, the country is rich with AI leadership and established AI development hubs in Toronto, Montréal and Edmonton.

Industry-defining tech success stories show us that potential is real. Shopify released its first platform in 2006, igniting a Canadian-fuelled, global shift in how merchants everywhere buy and sell goods. The business reimagined essential internet infrastructure for commerce, becoming a leader in developing unified customer experiences. Fast forward to November 2025, and Shopify merchants generated a record-breaking $14.6b in Black Friday Cyber Monday sales.

The question remains: what will it take to scale Canada’s next Shopify — and the one after that? From fragmentation to collaboration, Canada needs a bolder dialogue around tech.

Stakeholders nationwide have been forging connections to strengthen the tech ecosystem for years. Consider NEXT Canada. For nearly two decades, the organization has linked next-generation entrepreneurial talent with the networks, tools and capital needed to succeed. As a pillar sponsor, EY invested on day one, providing funding as well as critical mentorship, volunteerism and relationship-building support. The firm works with a host of other networks, such as Communitech, in the same way, going beyond fundraising to bridge tech entrepreneurs with the support needed to innovate and scale.

Cross-sector efforts like these reinforce progress across Canada. Still, many say the system itself needs a clearer, more consistent story to attract vital attention and investments needed to take homegrown innovation to the next level.

Tyler Hamilton is a Senior Director of Climate at MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub. He guides climate-related activities for ventures, corporate partners and investors, including the flagship Mission from MaRS program. Hamilton says it’s difficult to position Canada’s ecosystem effectively in the absence of a coordinating national organization that can shape the national message on tech innovation.

“It’s challenging to come up with a singular Canadian narrative or identity, because different regions of Canada are very different [in terms of] areas of focus, even different types of entrepreneurial culture, comparing Alberta to Ontario to Nova Scotia,” Hamilton says.

By comparison, Israel, Estonia and Singapore attract investment by rallying around unified “startup nation,” “digital society” and “smart nation 2.0” campaigns and offices, respectively. Hamilton sees an upside to that approach, noting Canada ranks second globally for cleantech companies even though he views the sector as lesser known on an international scale. To Hamilton, fragmented messaging causes that kind of success to get lost in the shuffle.

FINDING THE DOLLARS AND CENTS TO PUSH CANADIAN TECH FOUNDERS FORWARD

Over the last four years, major global and national geopolitical events have reshaped pre-seed and seed funding in Canada. In 2025, the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (CVCA) found investment activity has dropped since post-pandemic high points.

Historically, Canada saw an average 184 deals annually from 2016 to 2020. The average amount invested was $287m throughout that time. After peaking at 387 deals, averaging $1b, from 2021 to 2023, both the number and size of deals declined.

More broadly, research and development in Canada declined from 1.87% of GDP in 2022 to 1.81% in 2024. This is well below G7 and OECD averages. High-tech patent applications dropped 41.9% between 2012 and 2019, and domestic venture capital markets deteriorated, with a 34% decline in funding and widening return gaps.

Capital flows make that competitiveness gap even more stark. Canada attracted $2.15b in VC funding in the first half of 2025, while the US attracted $162b, representing a ratio far exceeding population differences.

“As a country, we need to really push on how we attract capital, how we demonstrate that we’re open for business,” Mortlock says. “We need to go on a road trip to say: bring your capital to Canada. Invest in our companies, and there’ll be a return.”

For Sigesmund, 2026 represents a purposeful chance make that kind of progress. With nation-building the star of Canada’s 2025 federal budget, the government is doubling down on AI, quantum compute and other tech-oriented initiatives.

Opportunities exist and Sigesmund says it’s time to ramp up the noise around that Canadian possibility for entrepreneurs here as well as founders and investors from other parts of the world.

“Access has traditionally been easier outside of Canada,” Sigesmund says. “But this is a real chance, with the public and private sectors working together to eliminate some of the barriers and attract even more interest. As that progress unfolds, we’ve got to share that message and really tell the world: Canada is the best place to invest in innovation.”