Among our membership, what we find more often is this: As they're scaling, they're looking for capital. When they look for capital, they look outside Canada, because the reality is that it's easier to get a deal done in San Francisco than it is here. Then, as they are getting their deals and funding, their funders—which are mostly from outside Canada—ask them to relocate and move out. That's how we lose a lot of our talent and great companies. Think of Ozempic, for instance. It was a U of T idea that now funds the Danish economy.
We see that leakage quite often. It is one of the biggest challenges. That's why one of our recommendations is to focus on series B and above funding when it comes to venture capital, because that is where we are seeing the biggest opportunity. Canada's biggest weakness is in losing a lot of really good companies because they're finding capital elsewhere. They're being pulled out of Canada.
