Canada’s Technology $100 Million Club: Learning from the Startups That Grew Up

Key takeaways

• Scaling successfully requires securing capital, knowing your market, and — most importantly — bringing together the right talent
• Canadian startups need to adopt a global mindset from the very beginning
• True success is built on learning from and embracing failure

According to recent reporting by the Globe and Mail, there are currently more than 77 privately held technology companies in Canada boasting more than USD $100 million in annual revenue, success most prominently attributable to their effective integration of AI technologies.

On April 1, 2026, founders of some of Canada’s most successful and innovative ventures came together at The Globe and Mail Centre in downtown Toronto to reflect on the current state of the tech ecosystem and what it takes for companies to make it into that distinguished “$100 million club.”

To round out the event, head of RBCx Sid Paquette joined a panel discussion alongside Mark Noonan, vice chair and executive sponsor of Canada’s Technology Fast 50 program (Deloitte Canada), and Grace Lee Reynolds, CEO of MaRS Discovery District.

With their extensive experience working with Canadian startups, all three have seen how some companies fizzle out while others ascend to that top level of success.

So how is Canada currently doing at supporting companies toward reaching this scale? And how can the industry generate and sustain the momentum to continue producing $100 million companies?

A question of talent

Reynolds suggests there are three critical elements for a company to successfully scale: securing the capital required to build to the next level, finding real customers as they bring their product to market, and — perhaps most essentially — bringing together the right talent.

There’s certainly no shortage of talent and expertise in Canada. But is that enough to help our tech ecosystem flourish?

“Canada has a wealth of talent,” Reynolds says, “but it’s a question of finding those who have had the experience of scaling a company. That’s what we see missing.”

Paquette agrees, noting there’s a fundamental disconnect between recognizing the capabilities available here in Canada and the realities of a competitive global market.

“We’re doing a lot of really good things, but we absolutely have gaps that we’ve got to think through. Don’t compare us to Silicon Valley. We don’t have that sort of scale. Do we have all the talent we need in Canada? No, we don’t. So we’ve got to get really smart about hacking it.”

Working with Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50, Noonan has watched many companies demonstrate exciting potential — then fail to deliver on that initial promise. The issue isn’t a lack of enthusiasm within the industry, he says, or even adequate fundraising. Rather, it’s how to strategize effectively over the longer term. Overall, he remains optimistic about the current climate while acknowledging the hurdles that lie ahead.

“This year, the growth rate of the 50 technology companies is the fastest rate in the last 21 years since the inception of our program,” he notes. “So we’ve got a lot of companies that are getting significant growth at that stage.”

Capital isn’t everything

An integral stage of every company’s evolution is securing working capital. Recent years, however, have seen a marked decline in domestic investment: according to RBCx reporting, 2025 was by many measures Canada’s worst year for venture capital fundraising in recent memory, with concentration disproportionately among only a few funds.

Paquette admits this tough reality can’t be denied. But accessing capital, he says, is only one part of the equation.

“Do we have a capital problem in Canada? We do. Are our seed funds comparatively close to the size of U.S. funds? Not even close. Do we have domestic investors that do a lot of growth-stage investing? We don’t.

“But the best firms are always going to find capital. It’s not like you give somebody more capital and that makes them successful.”

The greater need, he argues, is to provide companies the support they need to achieve real longevity. In this area, Canada too often falls short.

“From a domestic capital perspective, if you were to look at the top 20 growth-stage companies in this country and their cap tables, and who led their deals, looking at the early to mid-stages, 70% of those deals are led by Canadian investors.

“But when you look at their latest-stage deals, that flips to 20%. So they’re not struggling to get capital. There’s just no domestic capital. And that’s a problem for us.”

As Paquette observes, our ecosystem is distinct from that of the U.S. largely because of the high level of government investment, most significantly through Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax incentives. As taxpayers, we’ve indirectly funded virtually every single tech company in this country, often at the highest risk stages.

“And then what happens? These companies do amazing things and then we fade to black.”

“The best firms are always going to find capital. It’s not like you give somebody more capital and that makes them successful.”

So how can we create the next generation of fund managers and entrepreneurs, helping companies sustain the type of growth that produces $100 million-valued companies?

“We’ve got to get a lot better on the support system,” Paquette says. “It’s more than just connectivity. This isn’t about more networking events. We’ve got to be concerted and aggressive. Let’s take the best of the best that we have in this country — and we have lots of them — and give them the training. Let’s take the time and effort.

“It’s a longer-term horizon, but if you look out five, 10 years from now, this could be a very different ecosystem we’d be living in.”

Staying home vs. heading south

Recent trends indicate the Canadian tech ecosystem faces serious existential challenges. A study by Toronto’s Leaders Fund found that since 2020, Canada has steadily been producing fewer high-potential startups, and only 32.4% of Canadian-led high-potential startups now choose to actually headquarter in Canada, a dramatic decrease from over 67% in the 2015-2019 period. In 2024, nearly half of Canadian founders who raised more than $1 million were U.S.-based, and Canadian founders seeking funding in the U.S. raised nearly 2x more capital there than they did at home.

Much of this trend is attributable to the lingering effects of COVID, from which the market has yet to fully rebound. Still, for emergent companies, the lures of Silicon Valley and Kendall Square are very real.

However, Reynolds advises that while companies seeking seed funding might find meaningful opportunities in the U.S., there are also characteristics of Canadian companies that make them appealing to investors.

Recent developments back this up: despite the VC funding slump, 2025 saw signs of a turnaround, with foreign direct investment in Canada hitting nearly $100 billion, the highest since 2015 and the first time in a decade when inflow exceeded outflow. What’s needed, some have argued, is a new capital formation framework for large-scale investment.

Reynolds says that while new companies can find many advantages by being based here in Canada, they also benefit greatly from thinking beyond borders.

“Investors in the south certainly understand the talent and the capability we have. Much of it’s built on particular sectors where Canada has a lot of strength, such as AI and how it applies to health and clean tech solutions.

“As an ecosystem, it’s important that we continue to come together and look at a larger, holistic way of making things sticky for those earliest-stage companies to stay here. There are advantages to being a Canadian-controlled private corporation — some of the tax tools, for instance. But it’s not quite enough.

“It’s great to have capital, but you can’t grow unless you actually have sales and revenue. How do you create that opportunity from the front end? We counsel companies at their earliest onset that they can’t grow strictly in the Canadian market. You have to think globally from day one.”

For Noonan, beyond greater industry trends, scaling effectively still comes from fundamental practices.

“It’s the old saying: you’ve got to stop working in the business and start working on the business. Our founders are very scrappy. They learn to do more with less because we have less money. They’re talking to clients and going through iterations of their product and their offering many times, getting that traction and getting that money in the door.

“Professionalizing the go-to-market function, as well as getting some real discipline and understanding where they’re investing. A dollar invested in marketing produces — what? How much does it cost to attain a client or a customer? What’s your stickiness? And how do you build that in a repeatable manner, with the financing you have?”

Failing for success

Paquette believes one underlying trait of the Canadian tech industry is a fear of failure. While events and awards focus on championing companies that achieve great things, they often overlook the reality of what it took to get there.

“Success isn’t built on the shoulders of success. It’s built on the shoulders of failure. But you need to know what that failure is, so you don’t repeat your mistakes.

“We can learn from the people who’ve been there, ground through it, and persevered. We don’t know those stories, and as an industry, we don’t celebrate them enough, which means we don’t learn from them.”

This reluctance to embrace the possibility of failure as part of a learning process, he says, shows up in boardrooms, through hiring decisions and product innovation, as well as in founder psychology. And that, he says, is a mindset that’s overdue for a change.

“We have to wear failure as a badge of honour. Personally, I’ve failed way more times than I’ve succeeded. And that’s where I learn.

“We’ve got amazing people in this country. So let’s learn from each other.”

Ultimately, events like “Canada’s Technology $100 Million Club” are about just that: bringing together the brightest, most innovative minds of the Canadian tech ecosystem to share vital insights, recognizing common industry challenges while building a future in which even more companies can thrive.