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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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Key findings
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- 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.
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Regional snapshot
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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.
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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.
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Five organizations entered the 2025 dataset for the first time or for the first time in several years.
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“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.”
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