Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to speak with you today.
David Stein and I have been building and investing in technology companies for over two decades. I started my first tech company out of university and sold it to Torstar. David's first company grew to $100 million in revenues before being acquired. He then co-founded a second company, which was acquired by Salesforce.
Our businesses were founded in and run from Canada. With Leaders Fund, we've invested in over 25 technology companies since founding. Five of them have reached over $1 billion in valuation. Through these experiences, we have seen how to build outlier companies that generate jobs, economic growth and large tax bases.
Last month, we released a study analyzing 3,000 venture-backed companies founded by Canadians between 2015 and 2024. This study is in front of you now.
Two major findings emerged. First, company formation is slowing in Canada. In each year from 2015 to 2020, the U.S. produced roughly 13 times more high-potential start-ups than Canada. By 2024, that gap had widened, with the U.S. creating 45 times more.
Second, our best founders are increasingly leaving Canada. From 2015 to 2020, roughly 70% of Canadian-founded start-ups were started in Canada. By 2024, only 30% were started here while the number of Canadian-founded start-ups based in the U.S. more than doubled.
Just imagine if the vast majority of Harvard and MIT computer science graduates were moving to Canada to start their companies. The U.S. government would be doing everything in its power to reverse that trend.
Canadian founders will build more companies as big as Shopify. Those companies create IP, high-paying jobs and significant tax revenues, and ultimately increase prosperity. We should ensure that they're building those companies here.