Atlantic Canadian startups raised $348 million in venture capital in 2025, according to the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, or CVCA, driven by a strong fourth-quarter performance in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia.

It was the strongest annual Atlantic Canadian tally announced in this decade by the country’s private capital association, and a marked improvement from the $176 million reported by the CVCA last year.

It was no surprise that Newfoundland and Labrador recorded a strong performance with $163 million in funding in 2025, given the high-profile raises on The Rock last year. What was surprising was that Nova Scotian companies raised almost as much at $162 million.

A national surge in VC funding in the fourth quarter pushed Canadian VC funding for 2025 to a record $8 billion, driven by megadeals in major markets like Toronto and Vancouver. But the CVCA report also noted strong performance in smaller provinces.

“Across the country, notable activity . . . emerged in provinces such as Newfoundland and Labrador, which recorded the highest average deal size among provinces at $27.21 million, while Manitoba and Nova Scotia each posted record annual investment levels with $127 million and $162 million invested respectively,” said the report, issued today.

In an interview, the CVCA’s Director of Data and Product David Kornacki added: “We’re seeing a spread of the activity across all the provinces so it definitely is an exciting time, especially in the Atlantic Provinces. . . . Investors are investing all across Canada – they’re are not siloed in just these [major] centres any more.”

The annual total for Atlantic Canada was the strongest since St. John’s-based Verafin (now Nasdaq Verafin) booked a $505 million equity-and-debt funding round in 2019.

Atlantic Canada, like the rest of the country, saw a surge in funding in the fourth quarter. Between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, Newfoundland reported $142 million across five deals; Nova Scotia $97 million across four deals; New Brunswick $10 million across seven deals; and Prince Edward Island a single funding round worth $2 million. (Entrevestor calculated the fourth-quarter figures by subtracting CVCA’s data for the first nine months from the full year’s totals.)

In Newfoundland and Labrador, CoLab Software in November announced a US$72 million Series C funding round, the largest VC financing in Atlantic Canada in the past two years. That announcement came weeks after Spellbook, which makes AI products for law firms, closed a US$50 million Series B round in October led by Khosla Ventures, one of the top venture capital firms in Silicon Valley.

The CVCA figures for Nova Scotia include GoodLeaf Farms, which raised $52 million in equity financing to expand its vertical farming operations in Western and Central Canada and establish a new R&D centre in Ontario. The company began life as Halifax-based TruLeaf and its largest shareholder now is understood to be McCain Foods.

Other major deals were the US$35 million Series D round booked by ABK Biomedical (see accompanying article) and the US$16.5 million round closed by Halifax-based medtech company Sound Blade Medical in only its second year.

On a national level, the CVCA reported 571 funding deals totalling $8 billion in 2025, and said there was a further $1.3 billion in secondary transactions (in which existing investors sell shares to another investor).

Almost half of the primary investments were booked in the fourth quarter, when there were 165 deals worth $3.8 billion. This included Canada’s first $1 billion funding round, reported by Toronto-based generative AI driving company Waabi.