Executive summary

Alberta's innovation ecosystem continues to experience growth in 2025, solidifying its position as Canada's 4th largest innovation hub.

With 2,995 active startups founded or headquartered in Alberta (3,070 companies with an Alberta location, 75 companies inactive/closed) and US$870 million in capital raised across 148 transactions in 2025, the province demonstrates sustained momentum and investor confidence. This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Alberta's startup landscape, investment trends, and key performance indicators.

Alberta Startups by Region

INVESTMENT DISTRIBUTION BY MUNICIPALITY

Provincial Investment Trajectory

The data highlights a decade of meaningful change in Alberta’s capital landscape. After the economic downturn of 2015–2016 driven by global energy price volatility, the province entered a period of rapid growth. Investment activity peaked in 2020, reaching nearly US$2.9 billion. This milestone was fueled in large part by a standout year in Calgary, which accounted for US$2.5 billion — reflecting the broader global surge in technology and innovation investment during the pandemic.

Although funding levels moderated between 2021 and 2023, the US$2.4 billion recorded in 2024 signals a strong recovery and a return to near-record levels.

Contraction (2015–2016): Impact of oil price crash; limited capital activity.
Expansion (2017–2020): Explosive growth (~8x increase in total volume).
Correction (2021–2023): Post-peak volatility and global market stabilization.
Resurgence ( 2024 ): Strong rebound toward historical highs.

Geographic Diversification and Emerging Markets:

Before 2021, investment activity was largely concentrated in Alberta’s primary metropolitan centres. Recent data, however, points to increasing geographic diversification across the province.

Secondary markets: Communities such as Grande Prairie, Okotoks, St. Albert, and Blackfalds are now showing consistent — though still modest — levels of investment activity, signalling a broader distribution of capital beyond the major hubs.

Statistical outlier: The US$234 million recorded for the Hamlet of Clairmont in 2022 stands out as a clear anomaly. This figure likely reflects a single large-scale capital project or industrial transaction, rather than an ongoing trend in local startup growth.

Regional Performance Observations: Edmonton

Analysis of the Edmonton market shows a pattern of variability over the past decade. Funding totals have ranged from US$6 million in 2016 to a high of US$411 million in 2020.

This fluctuation suggests that overall investment levels are often influenced by a smaller number of high-value anchor deals, rather than a steady volume of mid-stage financings. While this dynamic can lead to standout years, it also points to an opportunity to further strengthen the depth and consistency of the capital pipeline in the region, particularly when compared with the more sustained growth trajectory seen in Calgary.

ECOSYSTEM MATURITY AND FUNDING DISPARITY

Alberta’s innovation ecosystem is shaped by two distinct models of maturity. Both of its major cities play an important role in driving provincial growth, but they differ meaningfully in their structure, areas of strength, and approaches to scaling companies.

Calgary: The Scaled Innovation Hub (1,300+ Companies) Calgary has achieved provincial critical mass, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of innovation. This level of maturity is reflected in strong talent recycling — where team members from successful startups go on to launch new ventures — a growing community of experienced, repeat founders, and well-established angel investor networks that provide consistent early-stage capital.
Edmonton: The Research Powerhouse (650+ Companies) Edmonton’s ecosystem is closely connected to major institutional anchors, including the University of Alberta and the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii). These foundations have shaped a strong deep tech orientation, with a focus on advancing long-term intellectual property in areas such as artificial intelligence and life sciences, alongside the commercialization pathways that bring this research to market.

The Funding Gap: A Structural Explanation

The data indicates a significant capital disparity: Calgary captures 86% of total provincial funding despite hosting ~62% of the total companies founded or HQd in the province. However, this funding gap is not indicative of Edmonton's underperformance, but rather a difference in industrial focus and capital accessibility.

Factor	Impact on Funding Distribution
Capital Intensity	Calgary’s portfolio is weighted toward energy and industrial tech, which require larger, more frequent capital injections than software-only plays.
Development Stage	Edmonton’s high concentration of AI and Biotech ventures typically sit in earlier, research-heavy stages where funding rounds are smaller and focused on R&D rather than market expansion.
Investor Proximity	Calgary benefits from its status as a financial hub; local proximity to traditional energy capital and venture capital (VC) firms provides a geographic advantage for securing larger Series A and B rounds.

Rural and Suburban Emergence

The US$234 million funding anomaly recorded in the Hamlet of Clairmont in 2022 offers a compelling example of resource-sector adjacency. Driven primarily by the acquisition of Northern Mat & Bridge, the transaction illustrates how proximity to Alberta’s core industries, including oil, gas, and forestry, can generate significant capital events in less traditional innovation centres.

Finding: Capital flows in rural Alberta are often linked to hard tech and industrial infrastructure that support the province’s energy corridor. This dynamic has created concentrated, high-value pockets of investment outside the primary metropolitan centres.

Investment Summary

VENTURE CAPITAL STAGE ANALYSIS AND ECOSYSTEM MATURATION

The 2022–2023 "Golden Year"

While 2020 marked the highest overall dollar volume in Alberta’s funding history, 2023 represents a notable high point for stage-specific momentum. During this period, the province recorded strong funding activity across key scaling stages:

Seed stage: Investment reached US$96.27 million, reflecting strong early-stage formation.
Series B: Funding climbed to US$285.92 million, signalling increased progression into growth-stage operations.

Together, these trends point to continued strengthening across Alberta’s capital pipeline.

2025 Performance: Resilience in the Growth Tier

2025 data points indicates a more selective funding environment compared to prior peak years. While overall investment levels have moderated, later-stage companies continue to attract institutional support:

Growth capital momentum: Both Series B (+$6 million) and Series C (+$98.0 million) funding have increased year-over-year compared to 2024.
Flight to quality: This pattern suggests that, even amid broader market caution, well-performing and mature companies are continuing to secure significant expansion capital.

Long-Term Maturation (2015–2025)

One of the clearest indicators of Alberta’s innovation ecosystem progress is the strengthening of its funding ladder, that is, the availability of capital from early-stage through growth-stage rounds. Between 2015 and 2017, later-stage capital — particularly at the Series B and C levels — was limited and inconsistent. Since 2018, the more regular presence of these rounds signals meaningful advancement.

This evolution reflects a shift beyond an early-stage–focused ecosystem toward one with the capital depth and infrastructure needed to scale companies into globally competitive businesses.

_{Total Funding in Alberta by Stage and Year (2015–2025). (Bars reflect aggregate dollars invested per stage, not average deal size; as a result, a stage with more frequent but smaller rounds may exceed a stage with fewer, larger deals in a given year.)}

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Top 10 Alberta Startups That Raised Funds in 2025

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All $ values are in USD.

All $ values are in USD.

Alberta's Position in the Canadian Ecosystem

Provincial Performance Comparison

It is important to distinguish between capital supporting newly launched startups (pre-seed and seed stage) and total provincial funding, which includes larger Series A through growth-stage rounds. Across Canada in 2025, total funding levels in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta are driven primarily by follow-on investments into companies founded in previous years, rather than by financings for newly incorporated firms.

Ontario & BC's Formation Scale: Ontario (536 new startups) and British Columbia (199 new startups) continue to lead in company formation. However, their total funding figures are significantly influenced by large Series C and later-stage financings. In both provinces, mega-deals for established companies account for a substantial share of total capital deployed, meaning overall funding totals are not solely a reflection of new venture creation.
Alberta’s Concentrated Growth-Stage Capital: Alberta recorded $317 million in total funding in 2025 alongside 47 new startups. While formation volume is lower than in Ontario and British Columbia, a significant portion of Alberta’s capital was directed toward established scale-ups raising Series B and Series C rounds. As a result, provincial funding totals reflect the performance and capital needs of growth-stage companies founded in prior years, rather than early-stage activity alone.

Taken together, these trends point to a broader national pattern: total funding levels are increasingly shaped by the depth and maturity of scale-up companies, while startup formation tells a separate — and complementary — story about ecosystem renewal and long-term pipeline strength.

Prairie Province Leadership

Alberta continues to play a leading role in entrepreneurial activity across the Prairies region. In 2025, the province generated more new startups than its neighbouring provinces, underscoring the relative strength of its early-stage pipeline and top-of-funnel ecosystem for new ventures.

Launch volume: Alberta saw the creation of 47 new companies in 2025, reflecting continued strength in early-stage formation..
Regional leadership: This total exceeds the combined startup output of Manitoba (17) and Saskatchewan (10).
Prairie share: Alberta accounts for approximately 64 per cent of all new innovation-driven enterprises formed across the Prairie provinces, reinforcing its role as the region’s primary hub for entrepreneurial talent and company formation.

National Outlier

Newfoundland recorded $62.06 million in funding in 2025 from just two companies. This highlights how total funding levels are often shaped by the presence of established, growth-stage firms rather than by the number of newly formed startups. In this case, the capital was raised by companies approximately five to 12 years old reaching significant expansion milestones.

Most Active Investors

Who's Funding What: Investor Activity Across Deal Types

Seed stage: Broad investor participation
Seed rounds attracted the most diverse investor base, with 66 unique investors participating across 22 deals — an average of three investors per round. This reflects wide early-stage engagement and strong top-of-funnel participation.

Series B: High syndication intensity
Series B activity involved 16 unique investors across just three deals. The higher investor-to-deal ratio suggests concentrated syndication, consistent with larger round sizes and increased capital requirements at growth stage.

Grant funding: Program-driven capital
Grant funding involved 19 unique funders across 30 transactions. The lower investor concentration per deal reflects the structured nature of government and foundation programs, where capital is typically deployed through established funding streams rather than syndicates.

Number of Unique Investors Per Stage in 2025

INVESTOR ORIGIN AND CAPITAL COMPOSITION

The Domestic Pivot: Shift Toward Canadian Capital

Between 2024 and 2025, the origin of capital backing Alberta companies shifted meaningfully. In 2024, a substantial share of funding included international participation, particularly from non-Canadian investors. By 2025, the mix had tilted decisively toward domestic sources.

Growth in Canadian-only participation: Funding from Canadian investors without U.S. involvement increased by 163 per cent, rising from $78.48 million in 2024 to $206.7 million in 2025. This marks a significant expansion in purely domestic capital deployment.
Rising domestic market share: Canadian investors accounted for 66.1 per cent of the Canadian/U.S./Other investment mix in 2025, up from 24.1 per cent the previous year. The shift suggests stronger domestic capital formation and increased confidence among Canadian funds and investors in Alberta-based growth-stage companies.

Sustained U.S. Capital Engagement

U.S. investor participation remained active in 2025, even amid broader global economic uncertainty.

Growth in U.S.-only capital: Investment from U.S.-based investors without Canadian partners increased by nearly 60 per cent, reaching $100.08 million in 2025. This reflects sustained cross-border engagement in Alberta-based companies.
Ongoing cross-border confidence: The continued presence of U.S. capital suggests that Alberta’s industrial and technology sectors remain competitive in attracting attention from American investors. While capital markets have become more selective overall, Alberta companies continue to secure participation from the U.S. venture ecosystem.

Impact Investment Trends

Energy leads investment (44.5%) The energy sector accounted for nearly half of total investment in 2025, with $491 million deployed. This reflects Alberta’s established strength in energy, alongside continued evolution into areas such as clean technology, emissions reduction and circular economy solutions.

AI as a cross-sector driver ($88M): Artificial intelligence attracted $88 million in funding and was active across 17 industries — more than any other enabling technology. Rather than being confined to a single sector, AI is increasingly embedded across applications ranging from drug discovery to industrial optimization.

Total Funding Raised in Each Industry, SubIndustries and Technologies in 2025.

Alberta’s 2025 funding landscape remains anchored in energy, with growing cross-sector momentum in artificial intelligence and continued strength in research-intensive technologies. Capital is concentrated in a focused set of sectors, reflecting increasing specialization and the presence of growth-stage companies, while also pointing to opportunities to further develop emerging areas such as quantum, blockchain and consumer-facing innovation as the ecosystem continues to mature.

Key Players: Top Investors by Deal Volume

Government and public-sector investors play a significant role in larger financings within Alberta’s 2025 market. The Government of Canada recorded the highest average deal size at $22.63 million despite participating in relatively few transactions, while BDC and Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA) were also involved in fewer but comparatively larger rounds. In contrast, investors such as Startup TNT and PrairiesCan focused on smaller cheques aligned with early-stage mandates, supporting top-of-funnel company formation. Mid-market investors including Evok Innovations and Amplify Capital operated in the larger-deal range, targeting growth-stage clean tech and industrial companies, reflecting continued confidence in capital-intensive scale-ups tied to energy transition and industrial innovation.

Methodology

What is a startup?

Startups in Start Alberta are tech companies designed to grow fast. Generally, such companies are VC-investable businesses. Only companies founded since 1990 are included in this report.

What is a unicorn?

Unicorns are (former) startups that reached US$1 billion valuation or exit at one point in time.

Transactional scope & definitions

The Alberta Deep Dive 2025 dataset uses a “total transactional” methodology to provide a broader view of provincial capital flows than traditional venture capital metrics. While Dealroom’s default search focuses on equity-based venture rounds, this report also includes strategic acquisitions, grants, post-IPO debt and follow-on equity financings, and non-VC private placements or buyouts. By incorporating these additional transaction types, the analysis captures a more complete picture of capital activity across Alberta’s innovation ecosystem in 2025.

Underlying data

This analysis uses two primary data repositories to provide a comprehensive view of the Alberta innovation landscape within a national context.

Alberta ecosystem data: Start Alberta

The Alberta-specific company and investment data is powered by Start Alberta, the province’s most comprehensive database for its technology and innovation ecosystem.

Data Origin: Start Alberta aggregates data through a combination of proprietary harvesting software and direct user submissions from founders and investors.
Verification: Data undergoes a manual curation and verification process to ensure accuracy, proper municipal categorization, and deduplication.
Access: The underlying data for the Alberta-specific sections of this report is available at startalberta.ca. For inquiries, contact info@startalberta.ca.

National benchmarking data: Dealroom.co

For inter-provincial comparisons and national market share analysis, this report uses the Dealroom dataset for Canadian data outside of Alberta.

Proprietary Aggregation: Dealroom harvests public information and verified user-submitted data, supplemented by advanced data engineering to track investment flows across Ontario, BC, Quebec, and the Atlantic provinces.
National Standards: Dealroom allows for a standardized comparison of funding stages (Seed through Growth) across all Canadian jurisdictions.
Access: National data is available via app.dealroom.co. For more information, visit dealroom.co or contact support@dealroom.co.

Note on data timelines: All data analyzed in this report was extracted in February 2026. Given the dynamic nature of venture capital, figures represent a snapshot of the most currently verified records at the time of publication.

All figures represent 2025 calendar year data unless otherwise noted.

Sectors

This report consists of 21 fixed industries, 32 sub-industries, and 19 technologies for granular company categorization.

2025 Canadian startup ecosystem: Funding & new startups by province - Methodology Note

Funding figures converted from CAD to USD at 0.72 exchange rate.
Alberta data sourced from the Start Alberta platform; all other provinces sourced from Dealroom.co global dataset.
Funding raised in 2025 reflects all startup funding activity, not limited to startups founded in 2025 (i.e., previously launched startups may have raised funding in 2025).

About Start Alberta

Initiated by Alberta Enterprise Corporation (AEC), A100 and the Venture Capital Association of Alberta (VCAA) and in collaboration with a wide group of community partners, Start Alberta provides real-time data for founders, investors, corporates and government stakeholders, cataloguing the collective regional tech ecosystem.

Operated by the A100 since its launch in 2021, Start Alberta is the most comprehensive database on startups and funding in the province, providing insights on the health of the regional innovation economy while showcasing the Alberta startup ecosystem to the world.

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ALBERTA DEEP DIVE 2025