Startup Genome, the Silicon Valley group that ranks innovation ecosystems, has released its combined report on cleantech and bluetech ecosystems, building on last year’s bluetech list, with Atlantic Canada improving its showing from 10th to eighth in the oceans rankings.

The report is officially being launched at the COP28 climate conference on Dec. 2, but has been made available online ahead of time. It finds Atlantic Canada to be particularly strong in terms of the size of the startup ecosystem specifically focused on bluetech plays.

Startup Genome estimates the bluetech ecosystem has contributed $682 million to the Atlantic Canadian economy since the second half of 2020, as calculated based on exits and aggregate startup valuations in the region. The report also estimates that $261 million of early-stage funding has been distributed during the same period.

The report also highlights the ecosystem's focus, as measured by the concentration of early-stage companies and dedicated support services, assigning a 10 out of 10 score. But it also warns of a regional deficit in a metric it refers to as knowledge, meaning innovation as measured through patents and post-secondary research. On that front, Atlantic Canada is one of the lowest-ranked ecosystems on the list, with a score of one out of 10. 

Further west, Vancouver ranked 14th, though with higher scores in the knowledge and experience categories. Toronto-Waterloo ranked 26th and 30th, respectively.

The highest-ranked ecosystem globally was Singapore, which also showed a relative weakness in the knowledge ranking, with a six out of 10 compared to eights and nines on other metrics.

For the cleantech rankings, Atlantic Canada did not make the list this year, but Vancouver ranked 12th, and Toronto-Waterloo 13th.