Third consecutive year of compressed early-stage capital in Canada as the country navigates trade tensions and tighter capital markets, while Northern Ontario widens its per-capita lead, women’s representation reaches a record 40%, and cumulative angel investment passes $1.92 billion since 2010.
Click here to read the full report.
TORONTO, May 21, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Canadian angel investment fell to a five-year low in 2025, with $113.79 million deployed across 490 investments – a 22.1% drop in capital deployed and a 20.1% drop in deal count from 2024, according to the 2026 State of Angel Investing in Canada report released today by National Angel Capital Organization (NACO).
The retreat reverses 2024’s partial rebound and extends a three-year compression in early-stage capital deployment. Capital deployed in 2025 is 57% below 2021’s $262.1 million pandemic-era peak, while deal count is 23% below the same period.
Even as 2025 marked a five-year low, Canada’s angel investor base broadened. Women’s participation in reporting Canadian angel networks reached a record 40%, the highest level since NACO began tracking the measure in 2017, when the share was 14%. Cumulative angel investment in Canada has now passed $1.92 billion across more than 3,000 entrepreneurial companies since 2010, a 16-year base of private risk capital deployed at the earliest, most capital-constrained stage of company formation.
Key findings
- Canadian angels deployed $113.79 million across 490 investments in 2025, down 22.1% in capital deployed and 20.1% in deal count from 2024’s $146.16 million deployed across 613 investments.
- 2025 marks a five-year low in capital deployed, with the second-lowest deal count over the same period.
- Northern Ontario leads Canada on a per-capita basis with approximately 36 deals per million population, 64% above Southern Ontario, an advantage that widened from 50% in 2024, and posted the largest mean cheque size of any reporting region at $579,000, roughly 2.5× the $232,000 national mean.
- Women now represent 40% of members in reporting Canadian angel networks, up from 35% in 2024 and nearly tripling from 14% in 2017. Four Canadian angel networks now operate at 100% women membership.
- Cumulative angel investment in Canada since 2010 has surpassed $1.92 billion across approximately 3,000 companies in every region of the country, a 16-year measure of the asset class’s role in Canadian company formation.
Regional snapshot
Reporting in 2025 spanned six regional development agency areas. Central Canada (Southern Ontario, Northern Ontario, and Québec) accounted for 76% of investments and 75% of capital deployed. British Columbia recorded 11.2% of deals and 16.8% of capital, and Nova Scotia returned to Atlantic Canada’s dataset through a newly-reporting organization. Significant parts of the country, including Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and the Northern Territories, remain thinly served by formal angel infrastructure.
Notably, Northern Ontario continued to lead the country on a per-capita basis with approximately 36 deals per million population, roughly 64% above Southern Ontario, and posted the largest mean cheque size in Canada at $579,000.
Five organizations entered the 2025 dataset for the first time or for the first time in several years.
“Canada needs to take more shots on goal. If we want more Canadian anchor companies, we have to fund the early-stages of the pipeline. By taking more shots on goal today, we will have more global champions moving through the capital continuum,” said Claudio Rojas, CEO of NACO. “High-growth companies raise capital within an interconnected system. Early-stage investment, growth capital, and the liquidity that comes from institutional investors are sequential stages, not separate ones. A weakness at any one stage compounds across the others.”
Policy implications
The 2025 decline aligns with structural conditions NACO has long identified: private capital at the earliest stages is most exposed to macroeconomic uncertainty, trade tensions, and tighter capital markets. Northern Ontario’s sustained per-capita lead, supported by predictable, multi-year federal regional development funding, demonstrates the result of investing in the operational capacity that makes private capital deployment possible.
“Northern Ontario’s per-capita lead and largest mean cheque size in the country are the result of patient, multi-year investment in the operational capacity behind the region’s angel network. Where Canada has built angel infrastructure, private investment follows,” said Mary Long-Irwin, NACO’s board chair.
NACO is calling for the $750 million ‘early growth-stage gaps’ commitment in Budget 2025 to be directed where the 2025 data shows it is most needed: the pre-seed and seed stages. Without dedicated funding at these stages, Canada will be predisposed for continued year-over-year declines in early-stage investment that lead to lower rates of company formation, the relocation of promising Canadian startups to the United States, and a weakening later-stage venture capital pipeline.
NACO and Startup Genome have quantified Canada’s early-stage funding gap at US$1.6 billion over five years. Closing it requires complementary federal mechanisms: matching funds paired with private angel capital deployment and core operational funding for the local angel networks through which $1.92 billion of private risk capital has reached Canadian companies since 2010.
NACO’s recommendations are detailed in the white paper Seeding Growth: The Case for Early-Stage Capital in Canada’s $1.75B Venture Strategy, available at nacocanada.com/seeding-growth.
About the report
The 2026 State of Angel Investing in Canada report is NACO’s annual data release on Canadian angel investment activity. This edition presents findings on 2025 activity from reporting organizations across Canada. The report is an advance data release to NACO’s 2026 Report on Angel Investing in Canada, authored by Colin Mason, Emeritus Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow.
Click here to read the full report.
About the National Angel Capital Organization
NACO is Canada’s national association for angel investors and early-stage capital organizations. Its members have invested $1.92 billion into more than 3,000 entrepreneurial companies. NACO represents over 4,000 angel investors and more than 100 organizations, including the angel networks and early-stage venture funds that form the core layer of Canada’s early growth-stage capital pipeline.
Media contact
Claudio Rojas
CEO, National Angel Capital Organization
[email protected]
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