Halifax-based Tidal Venture Partners, an Atlantic Canadian early-stage fund, has released its annual report showing it has built up a portfolio of eight companies in two years.

The fund says that for every dollar it has invested, its portfolio companies have attracted an additional eight dollars in dilutive and non-dilutive funding. The total funding from parties other than Tidal is $21.75 million.

Tidal believes that what really shows its impact in the community is the fact that it wrote the term sheets for five of these eight rounds. Having a local fund in on a funding round leads to other investors from across the country also backing these early-stage companies. And the non-dilutive funding doesn’t happen without the equity investment, it adds.

“I would see term sheets as being absolutely catalytic,” said Managing Partner Ian Whytock in an interview on Tuesday. “Without term sheets, rounds are not closed. It shows we have had a catalytic effect.”

Whytock and Co-Founders Alex McCallum, Kevin Springer and Chris Crowell launched Tidal in late 2022 to address the lack of early-stage funding in the region. The report mentions that seed and pre-seed funding have continued to decline since then and there is an acute need for more investment into early-stage companies, both regionally and nationally.

Against that backdrop, Tidal has developed this portfolio of companies, which it continues to grow:

• Bright Breaks, Halifax – This company has developed online exercise and wellness classes that enterprise clients’ employees can watch during work breaks, whether in the office or at home.
• Floqer, Halifax – Floqer makes sales software that emphasizes automation and data analysis, such as via web scraping.
• Huümans, Calgary and Halifax – Huümans helps small business owners find, manage and grow their cash.
• Innerlogic, Halifax – A Techstars alum, Innerlogic is developing a software and AI suite to automate employee feedback for enterprise clients.
• MIMOSA Diagnostics, Halifax – MIMOSA has developed a handheld tissue-imaging device capable of detecting skin injuries before they are visible to the naked eye.
• Pressto, New York and Halifax – Pressto has developed an AI system for teachers. It offers personalized prompts for their students, as well as generating lesson plans, vocabulary and feedback tailored to each youth’s abilities and interests.
• Symbodi Labs, Fredericton – Symbodi is best-known as the maker of the Vertiball, a portable back massager that requires no electricity and can be affixed to most walls. Its newer Vertigun device is a massage gun that is also wall-mountable.
• Wellnify, Halifax – Wellnify’s app aims to use gamification and community features to encourage people to exercise. For example, users join fitness challenges that encourage them to compete to exercise more. The app is typically sold as a white label product.

While data from the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, or CVCA, show that funding levels across the country have declined, the Tidal annual report highlights that levels haven’t come down that much for growth-stage companies. The truly acute fall has been in seed and pre-seed funding. Across Canada in 2024, levels fell 46 percent to $510 million and 39 percent to $99 million respectively, according to CVCA data.

“This is a national problem,” said Whytock, referring specifically to early-stage funding. “If you look at the CVCA report that came out six weeks ago, pre-seed funding has contracted nationally for three years in a row. Across the country, I would say that early-stage funding is almost at a crisis level.”

What’s needed in Atlantic Canada, he said, is more investors dedicated to early-stage financing. He called investing at this stage a “team sport”, stressing that having funders in the region writing term sheets attracts funders from other parts of the country.

He also applauded the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, which the CVCA named as the fifth-best pre-seed-stage VC fund in the country in 2024. It closed six pre-seed deals in 2024 worth a total of $2 million.

“Who’s doing something about it in Atlantic Canada?” asked Whytock. “I would say that NBIF is. NBIF has been listed as No. 5 in the country in terms of pre-seed investment. We need more of that.”