Canadian Tech Turning a Corner?

Canada’s startup ecosystem, while still ranked 2nd in North America, has slipped one spot on the global scale, now sitting at 5th worldwide. From 2023 to 2024, funding deals had decreased by 46.71%, reflecting a sharp pullback in venture activity. And yet, 2025 brings a new picture with 22 Canadian startups officially reaching ‘unicorn’ status and many others showing significant growth and momentum. 

Below, we will highlight five major venture capital raises from Canadian startups - signaling a new outlook for Canada’s startup and innovation economy and its future trajectory:  

1. Cohere: $500 Million

Renowned for their enterprise-focused large language models (LLMs), Cohere is tackling the challenge of bringing AI safely and effectively into the hands of businesses. Toronto-based Cohere has emerged as one of Canada’s crown jewels in artificial intelligence, raising $500 million at a $6.8 billion valuation. Backed by top investors like Radical Ventures, Inovia Capital, NVIDIA, and Salesforce Ventures, Cohere plans to channel its funding into global expansion, compute infrastructure, and talent. With recent partnerships from Bell and the  Canadian government, the company is positioning itself as a trusted AI leader across both private and public sectors.

Cohere’s mission lies in the union of research and product to bring about innovative technology. To remain at the forefront of ML/AI research, Cohere has developed a research lab to “explore the unknown.” What makes Cohere’s research Lab unique is their approach to a hybrid lab dedicated for research staff and independent researchers to conduct ML research. 

Cohere also supports various programs to support scholars, civic institutions, and academic partners:

The Catalyst Grants aims to support researchers, community builders and organizations advancing machine learning or applying AI to public benefit projects. These grants provide academic researchers and developers with free access to the Cohere API to support their projects and research into advancing safe, responsible LLM capabilities and applications.

Introducing Aya is a global initiative led by Cohere Labs to advance the state-of-art in multilingual AI and bridge gaps between people and cultures across the world. Aya is an open science project to create new models and datasets that expand the number of languages covered by AI. 

As Cohere scales internationally, they continue to recruit for engineering, research, and enterprise partnership roles. If you’re passionate about AI safety, infrastructure, and applied machine learning, we recommend looking into Cohere as their missions and values may align with yours.

2. Jane App: $500 Million

From North Vancouver, Jane Software (Jane App) is reshaping how clinics operate. Their practice management platform which is used by 200,000 practitioners across 50,000 clinics worldwide, Jane App powers necessary tasks from scheduling to billing to patient communication. Jane’s recent $500M+ financing round (valuing the company at $1.8B) is a testament to the company’s strong fundamentals and profitability. Founded in 2012 with less than $10M in primary funding, Jane has grown into a global health-tech leader. 

Jane App’s mission is to help the helpers. Since there exists so few health practitioner allies in the healthcare industry, Jane app cares about providing for those communities with a vision of creating a thriving community for health care professionals. 

Jane app has three core values: Love Jane. Work Hard. Have Fun. 

The first value relates to their customers and company, so they care about the user experience and are motivated to build a product that genuinely meets the needs of their clients. In regards to the company, Jane App is committed to building a workplace that is constantly curious and willing to learn #trynewthings.

Jane App’s second core value to ‘Work Hard’ is about creating a worldwide community of thriving allied healthcare practices. But “working hard” only works if you are working on the right things - which means they put in effort that is aligned with their company goals and aligned with individual abilities and talents.

Their final core value of Have Fun is the simple fact of enjoying your job and bringing enthusiasm into your work. It serves as a litmus test for the health of Jane as a company and is an early indicator of problems team members and/or the company.

3. StackAdapt: $337 Million

Toronto’s StackAdapt specializes in digital advertising, promoting programmatic advertising powered by AI.  The company raised $337 million at a $2.5 billion valuation, led by Teachers’ Venture Growth and Intrepid Growth Partners in 2025. The platform is trusted by global marketers and has been recognized as one of G2’s Best Canadian Software Companies 2025 (ranking #6).

StackAdapts culture is rooted in diversity and inclusion due to the belief that diverse backgrounds bring about exceptional software for the company and clients. StackAdapt cares about flexible work so that their team can be composed of employees from various backgrounds. 

If you’re curious about what it takes to join Stack Adapt, here are their values:

1. Adopt a Growth Mindset: StackAdapt’s ambitious nature is rooted in growth. The company invests not only in its clients, but also in its people and itself to achieve bold goals
2. Be Adaptable: Adaptability has been part of StackAdapt’s DNA since day one. The company’s ability to embrace change has been a key driver of its success
3. Bring Positive Energy: StackAdapt fosters a collaborative environment by encouraging positivity, which strengthens teamwork and resilience in the face of challenges
4. Get Stuff Done: The company prioritizes action and innovation, constantly seeking ways to achieve more with fewer resources while driving proactive creation
5. Be Proud of Your Work: StackAdapt thrives on the talent, skill, and passion of its team members, whose continuous efforts shape the company’s identity and achievements
6. Win Together: Success at StackAdapt is built on teamwork, where growth comes from learning, challenging, and supporting one another with respect.

StackAdapt’s values emphasize growth, adaptability, positivity, accountability, pride in craftsmanship, and collective success—defining a culture built on innovation, collaboration, and shared achievement.

4. Conquest Planning: $110 Million

Based in Winnipeg, Conquest Planning is helping people and advisors make smarter financial decisions through AI-powered financial planning software. The company had recently raised $110 million in its Series B, attracting investors like Goldman Sachs and Citi. With this new capital, Conquest aims to accelerate product development, expand globally, and integrate more intelligent features into its platform. Simply put: Conquest Planning’s purpose is to make personalized financial advice accessible to all.

The company's values are rooted in 5 pillars:

1. Trust - Demonstrating confidence in one another's abilities
2. Respect - Embracing awareness and admiration of diverse ideals
3. Innovation- Embracing change on our journey to deliver valuable financial outcomes.
4. Collaboration - Listening, supporting, and inspiring each other as we grow.
5. Integrity - Making decisions guided by our ethics.

Conquest Planning’s commitment to trust, respect, innovation, collaboration, and integrity fuels its mission to revolutionize financial advice—delivering intelligent, ethical, and globally accessible solutions that empower everyone to achieve personalized financial outcomes.

5. Eavor Technologies: $89 Million

Calgary-based Eavor Technologies Inc. is pioneering next-generation geothermal energy with its flagship Eavor-Loop system. Unlike traditional geothermal projects, Eavor-Loop circulates a benign fluid through a closed underground loop to capture Earth’s natural heat. 

Backed by the Canada Growth Fund, which invested $89 million (with an additional $48M contingent on milestones), Eavor is on track to bring its first commercial deployment to life in Germany. As Alberta eyes becoming a data centre hub, demand for clean power sources like Eavor’s will only grow. 

Eavor’s mission for clean, salable energy to be accessible on a global scale alludes to their values of innovation, partnerships, and environmental responsibility. Eavor’s vision is to achieve energy autonomy through advanced closed-loop geothermal. With robust financial backing, cutting-edge technology, a talented and driven team, and a global network of strategic partners, Eavor is well positioned to lead the way in developing the next wave of clean, secure, reliable energy solutions.

The Future of Canada’s Startups

These five companies span diverse industries—AI, healthtech, adtech, fintech, and cleantech—all united by technology and innovation. Backed by major VC raises, these fast-growing Canadian startups highlight the strength of Canada’s tech ecosystem. Canada’s total of 7,501 startups represent just 10% of all startups in North America yet the ones mentioned above are either Unicorns or considered to be some of Canada’s fastest growing startups. Their impact is undeniable to their consumers, competitors, and industry. Such achievements mark an exciting step forward, and we can only hope to see even more breakthroughs on the horizon.