Current Situation
In 2020, annual venture capital (VC) funding in Nova Scotia decreased from its 2017 high of $80.99 per capita to $66.39 per capita. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in lower investment rates during a portion of 2020, resulting in Nova Scotia’s lowest per capita investment rate since 2015. This also represented the first decrease in three-year average (2018-2020) since beginning to measure, to $68.24, still up significantly from the baseline of $30.22 in 2013-2015. In 2020, Canada’s per capita VC funding also decreased, but due to a few strong years it did not experience a decrease in the three-year average, resulting in a widening gap between the two three-year averages. The Canadian three-year average increased to $126.55 for 2018-20, which results in a difference of $58.30. Even considering the COVID-19 pandemic, growth at this pace does not put the province on track to meet this goal. It should be noted that VC funding can be volatile from year to year, so it is not clear if this trend will continue, and that the CVCA data contains only publicly announced VC deals.
| Period | Nova Scotia | Canada (target) |
|---|---|---|
| 2013-2015 | $30.22 | $58.52 |
| 2014-2016 | $47.53 | $70.25 |
| 2015-2017 | $68.13 | $83.03 |
| 2016-2018 | $72.89 | $94.94 |
| 2017-2019 | $73.11 | $119.89 |
| 2018-2020 | $68.24 | $126.55 |
Download CSV File
What This Means
This means that Nova Scotia’s start-up companies continue to attract VC funding to finance growth of their operations, but at a funding level lower than recent years, and further from the Canadian average.
Deep Dive
Read more detailed information about this goal by clicking 'Deep Dive'