I presented our most recent startup data to a group of policymakers on Thursday, and the conclusion of the presentation demonstrated perfectly the theme of Entrevestor Live.

Entrevestor Live is a three-hour virtual conference we’re hosting on Oct. 6 that will showcase the biggest success stories in the Atlantic Canadian startup community. It’s well known that there are high-potential early-stage companies in the region, but we want to demonstrate the economic power of the region’s most successful innovation-driven companies.

The final slide of my presentation Thursday showed just how startups or innovation companies have grown in the past five years. Their capacity to raise equity capital has more than quadrupled in that time.

This slide showed that in the last 2.5 years, Atlantic Canadian companies have raised about $1.3 billion, including money raised by publicly listed companies. I compared that to similar figures five years earlier. I only had funding data for full years, so I tallied up the full three years of funding covering 2014-16, and the total was $275 million.

The fact is that Atlantic Canada has now produced a range of companies that can close eight- or nine-figure funding rounds. Several of these companies – including CarbonCure, Introhive, META, Verafin and ABK Biomedical – will tell their stories at Entrevestor Live.

Check out the program here, and ask yourself if it’s worth an investment of $50 and three hours to learn about the changing landscape in the Atlantic Canadian startup community. You can buy tickets here, but hurry as early-bird pricing ends Wednesday.