Atlantic Canada recorded almost twice the venture capital investment in the first nine months of 2018 compared with the same period last year, powered by record funding in New Brunswick.

The Canadian Venture Capital Association on Monday released its funding data for the third quarter, which said the region booked about $41 million in 16 VC deals. The big news was that New Brunswick, which had a slow year in funding in 2017, led the pack in July to September of this year with 10 deals worth $32 million.

During the first nine months of this year, the region raised $122 million in 51 deals. That means that the region has almost doubled its VC fund from the first three quarters of 2017, when the region raised $65 million in VC.

Here is the breakdown:

Source: CVCA

New Brunswick has been a hotbed of funding this year, accounting for almost as much funding as Nova Scotia. In the first nine months of last year, according to the CVCA, Nova Scotia had almost four times as much funding as its westerly neighbour -- $49 million vs.$13 million.

Funding in New Brunswick has been dominated by a few major deals, most notably Introhive’s US$15.2 million ($20.2 million) funding round and Resson’s $14 million raise.

The CVCA report also indicates the third quarter of 2018 was an unusually slow period for VC investment, with only two deals worth $6 million showing up in the association’s databank.

Other Atlantic Canadian highlights in the first nine months include:

• With 14 deals, Fredericton was the fifth most active city in terms of number of transactions, falling just short of Calgary and Ottawa, which tied for fourth with 15 deals. Fredericton-based companies raised a total of $49 million, beating out those residing in Calgary or Ottawa.
• Halifax accounted for $56 million in VC funding, beaten only by Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Kitchener-Waterloo.  
• St. John’s is No. 9 in number of deals with 10 financings.
• New Brunswick Innovation Foundation closed 17 funding deals in the first nine months, making it the seventh most active fund in the country. It was involved in deals worth $27 million.
• Innovacorp made nine investments, and was involved in deals worth $26 million.

For Canada overall, the association found that the third quarter of 2018 was a weaker period in the past three years for VC investment.  Total investment was $652 million, just over half of the record $1.16 billion from the same period a year earlier.

The report said “$652 million was invested over 127 deals in the third quarter this year bringing the YTD total VC investment to $2.4 billion – 12 percent lower than the same period last year. The average deal size was $5.1 million, a 22 percent decrease from the previous quarter and 3 percent lower compared to the average deal size in the five-year period between 2013-2017 ($5.3 million).”