Canada has an innovation problem. More specifically, we have an innovation-to-commercialization problem. In my latest article, "My Mission: Fixing Canada's Innovation Problem," I dive into why we excel at invention but often fail at turning that IP into globally competitive companies. This is more than a passion project for me; it's a mission. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/dkh7QPWz Chris Carder Chris Adams David K. Nafis Ahmed Mandhir (Manny) Kalia Claudia KrywiakRahul Nirula Amber French Martin Basiri Mike Kirkup Alex McCallum Werner Muller Bruce Brown Kurtis Scissons Skaidra Puodžiūnas Benjamin Bergen Colleen Cole Kate Tomen, PMP, MMIE Amir Asif Vigen Nazarian Michael Badham Jim Hinton Sep Assadian Gerry Fung, P.Eng., CPA, CMA Dr .Tom Corr DBA, ADipC, MBA, ICD Eva Lau Ali Esfahani Raymond Luk Keith Loo Nicholas Nadeau, Ph.D., P.Eng. Bart Streppel Brendan Skiffington Jie Chen Stephen Gravel Shawn Poland Mike Commito, PhD Cheick Ismael MAIGA P.Eng Kevin Nguyen Bohdan Zabawskyj Kyle Briggs #Canada #Innovation #Tech #VentureCapital #Startups #Commercialization #CanadianTech
Great article. The Archangel Fund not only unlocks much-needed pre-seed capital for early founders, but also plays an important role in showing that deep-tech investing at the earliest stages is both possible and worthwhile. By stepping in when traditional capital is often hesitant, it sets a strong example for angel investors and helps build confidence in backing breakthrough science and engineering ventures. It’s great to see this kind of momentum in the ecosystem.
Ehsan Mirdamadi great article. This challenge is doubly true for hardware tech startups. While AI tools can cut down product design and development, they can’t literally build you an MVP (yet). Canadian VCs (and even angel funds) already have a strong bias in favor of software, with AI taking up most of the headspace, and often insist on the derisking of commercial traction (demonstrated through revenue) before they invest. And customer validation of hardware requires initial capital for prototyping, feasibility testing, scale-up, pilot testing, etc. NRC grants are helpful for sure, but require 30-50% matching funds. What are your thoughts on the pathway for these hard tech startups? After all, to solve real problems in the physical world, we’re gonna need real, tangible, physical solutions!
Great article and amazing work with Codalio. This will certainly help the initial ramp up. But what still remains a problem in my opinion is exactly what you pointed out as your Codallio moat: having clarity on the pain point and a well-tested process / workflow. Too often, the vision is still too abstract, and we expect automation or AI to somehow fill in the gaps. Perhaps this ties into the scoping challenge you mentioned, though I see it as a deeper, more fundamental issue. I am curious how do you think teams can bridge that clarity gap more systematically?
Thank you for tacking this problem head one Ehsan Mirdamadi 1: If you have not yet, you need to engage with Kyle Briggs and his CanInnovate blog (https://www.caninnovate.ca/). 2: This paper provides the best, and a concise, explanation why Canadian capital is so risk averse: https://www.policyschool.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/FP14-CdaProdChall.Martin.FINAL_.pdf. Understanding that Canadian investor behaviour is rational, not a failing of character, is the necessary first step to finding a solution. 3: As Ehsan Shariati points out, Canadian incubators and accelerators are innovation theatre because they shun directly supporting, and accountability for, ensuring the companies they "support" secure capital pre-revenue. 4: As Kyle makes the case for, no progress will be made until substantial public capital applied to de-risk investing pre-revenue is available.
Time. Money. And hardwork to fruit conversion ration, including affordability and risk taking ability, all of this play a HUGE ROLE in the reason we're facing the innovation problem. Don't even get me started on "all things wrong with the government and its policies", because I ain't even counting it here. But great work on the article! We need more people to keep highlighting such issues!
Great article Ehsan Mirdamadi. We’ve built an untapped R&D capacity in 🍁 that falls short when it comes to translating innovation into scalable, exportable products. The pre-traction funding gap and MVP execution gap are real and solvable if we better connect technical founders with experienced product operators, stronger early validation frameworks, and patient domestic capital. Bridging that divide is how we’ll keep both our IP and value creation here in Canada. Partially what I'm trying to achieve via TrueNorthCTO with respect to access to a community of operators.