Canadian venture capital investments hit a record in the first quarter of 2016, with Atlantic Canada holding its own in early investments but missing out on the late-stage deals that drove the market.

Canada’s Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, known as CVCA, today issued its quarterly data on VC investments in Canada, saying that first-quarter VC investment hit $838 million – nearly double the amount of the same quarter of 2015. The increase was driven largely by big deals and builds on the past few years of growth.

The story in Atlantic Canada was a lot of small deals, especially in New Brunswick. The CVCA said there were 17 deals in the region worth $15 million. The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation – which the CVCA lists as the second-most-active government or quasi-government fund, exceeding only by BDC Capital – accounted for nine deals worth $9 million. Innovacorp – No. 3 in the government category – did five deals worth $5 million.

“The substantial increase in amount of VC investment in Canada offers a great reflection of the investment opportunities there are here right now,” CVCA Chief Executive Mike Woollatt said in a statement. “VCs are seeing the value of Canadian entrepreneurial talent and making some big bets on the future.”

The Atlantic Canadian totals are less than 2 percent of the national total, but it should be remembered that it was a record quarter across the country. And Atlantic Canada’s young startup community has not yet received the 10- and 11-figure deals that drove growth in Central and Western Canada.

The largest deals in the quarter were: Real Matters Inc., Ontario, $100 million; Zymeworks Inc., B.C., $87 million; Farmers Edge, Manitoba, $58 million; BuildScale, Inc., Ontario, $49 million; and Indochino Apparel Inc., B.C., $42 million.

The CVCA said late-stage investment accounted for more than 60 percent of the dollar value of deals in the first quarter, up from 30 percent in the same quarter two years earlier.

Other than the Farmers Edge investment, all the major deals occurred in Ontario, B.C. and Quebec. There were five deals worth $7 million in Alberta and one worth $1 million in Saskatchewan.

Earlier this year, the CVCA – which will hold its annual conference in Toronto next week – reported that there were 536 VC deals in Canada last year, worth a total of $2.3 billion.

In Atlantic Canada, the 2015 tally was: