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Partner, Emerging and High Growth Companies, Toronto
Partner, Emerging and High Growth Companies, Calgary
Companies building on the power of artificial intelligence surged to the forefront of venture capital activity over the past year with a record volume of deals, positioning AI-focused companies as the dominant players in Osler’s 2025 Deal Points Report: Venture Capital Financings.
In its fifth annual Deal Points Report, Osler’s market-leading Emerging and High Growth Companies Group analyze 686 anonymized venture capital and growth equity preferred share financings completed by the firm from 2021 to 2025, representing more than US$15.2 billion in total transaction value. New for this year, the report also includes expanded data on 240 convertible securities financings completed by the firm from 2024 to 2025, amounting to an additional US$1.3 billion in total transaction value, reflecting how prevalent those instruments have become at the early stage. Together, the Deal Points Report covers approximately US$16.5 billion in aggregate transaction value.
The rapid ascent of AI is a defining theme of the 2025 Deal Points Report, with AI emerging as the largest single industry category in the dataset. AI was not tracked as a standalone category in the Deal Points Report until 2023. Since its formal inclusion, it has followed an exceptional growth trajectory:
- 15% of deals in 2023
- 18.1% of deals in 2024
- 23.6% of deals in 2025
In addition to leading by deal count, AI companies accounted for 54% of total dollars raised in 2025, more than doubling their 26.4% share of capital in 2024.
“That’s a structural shift, not a blip,” says Ryan Unruch, co-author of the Deal Points Report and a partner in Osler’s Emerging and High Growth Companies Group. “AI is now the single largest industry captured by the report by both deal count and dollars invested. It’s well represented across every stage from Seed through Series D, and it’s commanding premium valuations that other sectors simply are not seeing.”
AI companies experienced up rounds at nearly double the rate of any other sector, while representing only 11.1% of down rounds. They were also able to command premium valuations across all financing stages, with average AI deal sizes growing 177% from 2023 to 2025, compared to just 1% for health/life sciences companies.
The report data also confirms the maturation of later stage financings in the Canadian ecosystem. For the first time, Series D and beyond crossed into double digits as a share of deals volume — 10% — while pulling in 43.6% of all dollars, including Osler client Waabi’s record-breaking $1-billion round.
Valuations were also larger — 76.3% up rounds, with down rounds falling to 11.3% from a 2023 peak of 26.1%.
“Series B became the real pressure point,” says Ryan. “Down rounds at that stage jumped 67% year over year (representing 16.7% of Series B financings), which lines up exactly with the cohort of companies that priced at the 2021–2022 peak that had to go back to market in 2025 and agree to less favourable terms.”
The growth of AI positions it ahead of both health/life sciences and information technology as the most significant sector in Canadian financings. AI companies span all stages but dominate in the later rounds of financings, representing 30% of Series C financings and 28% of Series D+ financings.
Women founders reach new level of representation
Women founders reached their highest levels of representation since 2021, marking another encouraging trend highlighted in the report. In 2025, 22.1% of financings involved at least one woman founder, up from 15.6% in 2021, with 2024 and 2025 representing the highest levels of women founder participation on record in the report’s data. Notably, several high‑profile AI financings included women founders, including Raquel Urtasun, founder of Waabi. This signals increasing momentum toward greater gender representation within Canada’s high‑growth innovation economy.
Ontario leads as Québec and British Columbia gain momentum
Ontario remains the dominant jurisdiction for Canadian financings, accounting for 45.7% of all deals and 60.8% of total dollars invested in 2025, while Québec saw significant year‑over‑year growth, with 21.4% of all deals and 12.8% of invested capital captured by the Deal Points Report.
British Columbia continued to play a meaningful role in the national ecosystem, accounting for 12.9% of all financings captured by the Deal Points Report and 16.5% of total capital invested in 2025. Meanwhile, the Prairies and Atlantic Canada sustained strong levels of deal activity and investment dollars, reinforcing the increasingly national footprint of Canadian financing activity.
Long‑term sector realignment gains clarity
Beyond AI’s rapid emergence, the report confirms a broader structural reallocation of capital across sectors over the five‑year period.
Information technology has experienced a sharp decline, with its share of deals declining to 17.1% in 2025 from 23.1% in 2024, while its share of deal value fell to 11.5% from 15.5% in 2023.
Health and life sciences has grown steadily, increasing to 23.6% in 2025 from 18.1% in 2024. This ties with AI for the highest proportion of deals in 2025.
Cleantech has expanded substantially, rising to 16.4% of deals in 2025 from 3.8% in 2021, with deal value share increasing to 6.3% from 2.3% over the same period, reflecting sustained investor focus on the energy transition and climate‑driven innovation.
By contrast, consumer and retail activity has declined sharply, falling to just 6.4% in 2025 from 18.5% of deals in 2021, while its share of deal value dropped from 14.5% to 1.9% over the same period.
A market defined by innovation and resilience
Taken together, the 2025 Deal Points Report illustrates a decisive shift in Canadian financing dynamics. Capital is increasingly concentrated in sectors defined by advanced technology, healthcare innovation, artificial intelligence and sustainability, while geographic activity continues to broaden beyond traditional hubs.
For more than a decade, Osler has served as counsel to some of Canada’s most innovative and leading startup founders and growth-stage investors. Companies such as Waabi, Blue J, Beacon Software, Taiv, Raven Indigenous Capital, BKR Capital, General Magic, Telegraph Ventures and Mangrove Lithium are rapidly becoming game changers in the sectors in which they operate. Learn about them in the Client Success Stories section of the Deal Points Report.
People Mentioned
Partner, Emerging and High Growth Companies, Toronto
Partner, Emerging and High Growth Companies, Calgary
