Canada’s $1.75 Billion Plan Faces a Seed-Funding Drop

By Amara Osei

Ottawa announced a $1.75 billion Venture and Growth Capital Plan on October 22 as seed-stage financing fell 31% in the first half of 2026, according to The51 co-founder and CEO Shelley Kuipers. Overall venture investment rose 17% over the same period, but 16 large deals took nearly 60% of venture dollars, according to Kuipers.

Kuipers warned that founders unable to raise a first cheque may shut down or build elsewhere, costing Canada companies, jobs and wealth. Her diagnosis: money has concentrated in companies that already made it, while financing for the next generation has dried up.

What did Ottawa pledge?

Kuipers framed the fall announcements as major bets on Canada’s economic future. September’s Canada Investment Summit brought announcements of nearly $500 billion in investment and financing. She said Ottawa followed on October 22 with the $1.75 billion plan.

The package includes $75 million dedicated to pre-seed and seed investment and a previously announced $100 million emerging-manager stream that gives newer managers, including those outside traditional hubs, a chance to earn institutional trust. Kuipers called the plan a meaningful step, though parts remain under design.

She warned that every quarter of delay matters and public capital alone cannot rebuild the seed market. Her test: whether public money crowds in private capital.

Where will the $4 trillion go?

In her iPolitics column, Kuipers expects Canadian women to control nearly $4 trillion in wealth by 2028, up from $2.2 trillion in 2019. She called the shift one of the largest in the country’s private-capital history and said it is already under way. The wealth pool is already in Canada, she said.

Her central argument is not a shortage of money. Canada has too few trusted routes for moving private wealth into early-stage Canadian companies, she said.

Without new infrastructure, she said, wealth may remain in passive portfolios rather than build domestic businesses. Kuipers says the missing system should bring individual women investors, family offices and institutions to the same table, pair capital with experience and networks, and direct funding to companies in every region.

For public and institutional allocators, including BDC Capital, pension funds and banks, such infrastructure offers leverage because it reaches investors they could not access alone, Kuipers said.

Can women close the capital gap?

Kuipers disclosed that she co-founded The51, a financial platform and venture firm focused on unlocking the economic power of women, and has spent seven years building this type of financial infrastructure.

At its 2019 launch, she said, investors doubted the model: “When we started in 2019, we were told women wouldn’t write cheques.” Kuipers said that debate is over: 95% of capital from The51’s individual and family-office investors now comes from women.

She also said women bring commercial experience and networks that help them spot opportunities others miss. Yet women founders receive just 4% of Canadian venture capital, according to Kuipers, while building companies across health, wealth and work, enterprise technology, AI, finance, defence and agriculture.

Kuipers argued that some of the most promising companies sit beyond Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Wealth managers and family offices do not need to build funding vehicles from scratch, she said, and women with capital should not wait for an invitation. “The table is set.”

How does regional capital scale?

Kuipers cited SiftMed in St. John’s, where Holly Hill and her team use AI to make complex medical records easier to review. Atlantic investors Pelorus VC and Sandpiper Ventures backed the company early, according to Kuipers.

Staircase Ventures led its next round, and The51 joined, according to Kuipers. She said the sequence shows how regional investors who understand a market take the first risk, after which national capital follows the trust they have built.

She also said individual women and a major Canadian bank have invested side by side within The51. The model now needs scale, she said: “The model works. What it needs now is scale.”

Within The51’s latest fund, every institutional dollar has brought in $3 of private capital, Kuipers said. She called that the crowding-in Ottawa wants and said the infrastructure needs anchors, not invention.

What should Ottawa require?

Kuipers urged Ottawa to establish conditions quickly and set three tests before the first public dollar goes out. She said the plan’s public capital must prove that it crowds in private money.

• Match public money. Kuipers wants Ottawa to require part of pre-seed and seed funding to include capital from new private investors through any qualified fund, angel network or syndicate. Her standard: “Every public dollar should widen the investor base, not just fund the deal.”
• Canadian incentive. Model it on the U.S. Qualified Small Business Stock regime, as proposed in the Bet on Canada open letter Kuipers signed with NACO, CVCA, CCI and others. Make it usable by first-time angels, not only seasoned investors. Pair it with a capital-gains rollover for proceeds reinvested in qualifying Canadian businesses, letting one success finance the next.
• Count investors, not just dollars. Kuipers wants Ottawa to report how much capital the plan deploys, how many new investors it brings into Canadian private markets and who those investors are.

Kuipers says Ottawa’s $1.75 billion plan will spend public money either way. Its design will either broaden Canada’s base of owners or top up companies that already have one, she said.

She concluded: “If we’re serious about building Canadian prosperity, we need to be just as serious about who will own it.” For Kuipers, the immediate test is whether public money crowds in private capital before another quarter of delay compounds the decline in seed financing.