Canada has a lot of problems: Here are 26 startups trying to tackle them in 2026

Investors are most drawn to companies taking on nation-building to change the way we live and workYou can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.Despite the long-standing trend of Canadian founders moving to the United States and declining venture capital investment, investors say the country’s entrepreneurial ambitions have yet to be snuffed out and the challenging conditions — which include U.S.

President Donald Trump’s attacks on Canadian businesses and sovereignty — are boosting a cohort of startups focusing on solving hard problems for Canada.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Venture capital investments in Canadian startups plummeted 26 per cent to $2.9 billion in the first half of 2025 compared to a year earlier — the lowest level since 2020 — but investors looking to 2026 are most drawn to companies taking on nation-building in their own ways to change the way we live and work.Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Top Stories will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againInterested in more newsletters? Browse here.That includes companies using generative artificial intelligence to build applications for lawyers, engineers and coders to supercharge productivity and growth; those disrupting and challenging incumbents in banking, logistics and health care; and companies developing technologies of the future, including dual-use technologies such as quantum computing and clean tech.The 26 companies listed below will still need to contend with the issues facing all Canadian startups, including access to capital and obstacles to scaling, but they are all approaching inflection points this year in terms of fundraising, product maturity or global reach that make them worth watching.Toronto-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup Cohere has made its name creating large language models (LLMs) tailored to businesses, raising US$600 million in 2025 and US$1.64 billion to date from investors such as Radical Ventures Investments Inc., Inovia Capital Inc., Nvidia Corp. and AMD Ventures, the venture-capital arm of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. It is one of Canada’s most valuable startups at US$7 billion.Founded in 2019 by University of Toronto graduates Aidan Gomez and Nick Frosst, alongside Ivan Zhang, the company has inked partnerships with Royal Bank of Canada, Bell Canada and Dell Technologies Inc., as well as agreements with the governments of Canada and the United Kingdom to bring AI to the public service.Cohere in 2025 opened a Montreal office and made key hires, such as Joelle Pineau, Meta Platforms Inc.’s former vice-president of AI research. It plans to expand in East Asia and has announced plans for an office in Seoul. Cohere chief executive Gomez has said the company is on its way to profitability and hinted that an initial public offering could come soon.Toronto-based fintech Wealthsimple became one of Canada’s most valuable tech companies in 2025. In late October, it joined an exclusive list of such companies to hit a $10-billion valuation after raising $750 million in a deal co-led by San Francisco’s Dragoneer Investment Group LLC and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC Private Ltd. A few weeks before that, the company surpassed $100 billion in client assets under administration, which was three years earlier than its December 2028 goal and up almost 100 per cent from September 2024.“Few companies have achieved what Wealthsimple has in the last few years,” Christian Jensen, a partner at Dragoneer, said in a statement. “They’re redefining … Canada’s financial services industry.Launched in 2014 as an investment platform by co-founder and chief executive Michael Katchen, Wealthsimple is now taking on traditional lenders by offering loans, credit cards, cheques, gold trading and full-service wealth management. It will continue rolling out new investment products and features this year to expand its client base, which currently sits at three million, and to hit its goal of $1 trillion in assets under administration by 2034.Burnaby, B.C.-based Clio, which sells cloud management software for law firms, is aiming to command a greater share of the legal technology market as AI adoption grows. Clio upgraded its toolkit through two acquisitions in 2025, and it now offers an AI tool for legal professionals and has a global database of more than one billion legal documents.“Clio has the rare combination of a generational platform, a product-obsessed team and the ambition to reshape an entire industry, (and I) believe Clio will emerge as the category-defining AI company shaping the future of law,” Tony Florence, co-chief executive of NEA Management LLC, said.Clio closed a US$500-million funding round in November that valued it at US$5 billion. Chief executive and founder Jack Newton said the fresh funds will be used to position the company as an AI-first platform and to support its continued global expansion and sales ramp-up. Clio’s annual recurring revenue grew 60 per cent to US$400 million in 2025 from US$250 million in 2024.Canada Post is struggling, but its delivery startup rival UniUni is faring better. Peter Lu and Kevin Wang initially founded the Richmond, B.C., company as a food delivery service in 2019. After landing a major contract with fast-fashion giant Shein (legally known as Roadget Business Pte Ltd.), the founders revamped their business to focus on e-commerce deliveries supported by a network of on-call gig drivers and an AI-driven delivery platform and warehouse system that prizes efficiency above all.Investors have credited UniUni for its aggressive approach to fundraising and growth; it closed a US$70-million Series D round in October after securing US$80 million over two Series C rounds in 2024. It will continue in 2026 to expand its North America delivery and warehouse footprint, which now covers 80 per cent of Canada. Its revenue surged 6,829 per cent from 2021 to 2024, helping it land in fifth place on Deloitte Canada’s 2025 Technology Fast 50. UniUni has raised US$205 million to date.In November, Coquitlam, B.C.-based Photonic was among the three Canadian quantum computing firms selected to advance to the second stage of the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI), which aims to pinpoint the quantum computing approaches that can lead to a large-scale machine solving industrial use cases by 2033.It also snagged a spot in Ottawa’s recently announced Canadian Quantum Champions Program. The company in January said it had recently raised $180 million from a consortium of international and homegrown investors and it has now raised $375 million to date. It will focus this year on building out its $45-million quantum research and development facility in the U.K.“Our conviction (in Photonic) is rooted in its modern, distributed architecture, but also the world-class team behind it and deep collaboration with Microsoft Corp. on a shared roadmap,” Inovia Capital partner Chris Arsenault said.Stephanie Simmons, who founded Photonic in 2016, landed on UNESCO’s Quantum 100 list, which recognizes leaders in quantum computing, in 2025. Photonic has raised US$140 million to date from the likes of Yaletown Partners Inc., Amadeus Capital Partners Ltd., Microsoft and British Columbia Investment Management Corp., with its last funding round in November 2023.Led by co-founder and chief executive Avery Pennarun, Toronto-based Tailscale has become one of Canada’s fastest-growing tech companies by selling virtual private networks (VPNs) to AI companies. Boosted by the AI boom, Tailscale has doubled its growth in the past 12 months.Its paid customers hit 20,000 in November and it now has more than one million active monthly users, and its revenue has grown to tens of millions of dollars over the past 12 months. Key clients include Microsoft, Nvidia, Telus Corp., SAP SE and the AI industry’s top companies and startups.The company completed a US$160-million Series C round in April, bringing its total funds raised to more than US$275 million. It is valued at US$1.45 billion. In 2026, Tailscale wants to continue scaling its team, which grew 65 per cent in 2025, and will launch new AI security capabilities for its clients.“Tailscale’s success in becoming the leading network platform is well-timed for the AI era,” Amit Kumar, partner at Accel Partners LP, said.In 2012, health and wellness clinic owner Alison Taylor and website developer Trevor Johnston launched North Vancouver, B.C.-based Jane App, a cloud platform for health practitioners to manage bookings, invoicing and insurance claims. Taylor and Johnston, who serve as co-chief executives, have managed the company like a small business from the start, relying on self-financing and focusing on profitability.In May, Jane App closed a US$500-million-plus funding round led by Silicon Valley’s TCMI Inc., lifting its valuation to $1.8 billion, three times higher than what it was worth in 2021. The company released the AI-powered notetaker AI Scribe for its users last year, and expects to expand its features for U.S. users this year and will focus on incorporating AI into its products and services.Jane has more than 200,000 users, mostly in Canada, the U.S. and Britain, and generates more than $100 million in annual revenue.Y-Combinator-backed CoLab, which makes AI-powered tools to help manufacturing and engineering workflows, raised US$72 million in a November Series C round that will help the St. John’s, N.L.-based company refine and develop new products such as AI agents, expand its partnerships and grow its engineering, product and go-to-market teams across North America and Europe.“The company is positioned to create a new paradigm for the way things are designed,” said Patrick Lor, a partner at Panache Ventures, which has helped fund CoLab.Founded in 2017 by Adam Keating and Jeremy Andrews, Lor described them as “one of the most talented founding (and) management teams in the Canadian startup scene.” CoLab’s revenue surged 1,730 per cent over the past three years, and the company has built a client base that includes Bombardier Inc., GE Appliances and Ford Motor Co. It has raised more than US$120 million to date.Canada’s latest budget earmarked nearly $82 billion over five years for defence, including $6.6 billion for a new Defence Industrial Strategy to increase procurement from Canadian supply chains. Investors and entrepreneurs have taken note. Eliot Pence founded Arctic-focused defence tech company Dominion Dynamics in October.The Ottawa-based startup completed a $4-million pre-seed funding round backed solely by Canadian investors, including Garage Capital Inc. and Golden Ventures Pte Ltd., opened a development office in Toronto last year and is on track for another major fundraise early in 2026.Devon Galloway, a partner at Garage Capital, said Dominion Dynamics is tackling a critical problem in Arctic defence that, if done right, positions it to serve a “massive” global market.“The founding team’s deep experience in this domain enables them to move with the speed and urgency this challenge demands,” he said.Pence said the company is tripling its headcount in 2026 and launching a factory in Kanata, Ont., next March. The startup’s team includes Canadian Armed Forces veterans, and founder Pence led U.S. defence tech company Anduril Industries Inc.’s international team from 2018 to 2022.Sherbrooke, Que.-based quantum computing startup Nord Quantique has big plans for 2026: it will launch a new quantum system, target “significant” funding and double the size of its quantum lab and its 50-person headcount this year. It will continue to work on DARPA’s QBI as one of the three Canadian companies selected to advance to Phase Two and was also selected to participate in the new Canadian Quantum Champions Program.“With its unique technology and world-class team, Nord Quantique is well-positioned to deliver useful, commercially viable, and energy-efficient quantum computers that operate within existing data centres this decade,” JS Cournoyer, partner at Real Investment Management Inc., said.Founded in 2020 by Julien Camirand Lemyre and Philippe St-Jean, the company has raised US$20 million to date.Dialog Enterprises Inc. (Spellbook): Inovia Capital said Toronto-based legal tech startup Spellbook ranks in the top 10 per cent of its portfolio in terms of performance. The company makes an AI-powered tool to draft and review legal contracts and has grown eightfold over the past two years to serve 4,000 law firms and in-house legal teams in 80 countries. It will close a “major” fundraising, is on track to exceed $100 million in annual recurring revenue this year and will double its headcount over the next 18 months, co-founder and chief executive Scott Stevenson said. Spellbook secured a US$50-million Series B round in October.Waabi Innovation Inc.: Backed by Silicon Valley giants such as Nvidia and Uber Technologies Inc., Toronto-based Waabi is in advanced discussions to close a US$750-million fundraising round, according to media reports. Led by Raquel Urtasun, who was chief scientist at Uber’s self-driving unit, Waabi previously raised $392 million. In other news, Volvo Group’s autonomous truck division in 2025 struck a deal to integrate Waabi’s technology into its vehicles.Blue J Legal Inc.: University of Toronto law professor Benjamin Alarie co-founded legal software startup Blue J Legal in 2015, which rebooted its product in 2023 after integrating ChatGPT into its tax law-focused chatbot. The move jump-started revenue growth. Its revenue surged to $20 million in 2025, up from $2 million in 2023. The Toronto company will continue its North American and U.K. expansion and will announce new partnerships this year. It raised US$122 million in a Series D last July.Felix Health Inc.: Felix Health will use the $53 million it raised in October to grab a bigger slice of the telehealth market through diversifying its marketing efforts, expanding its team of 150 and launching new products and offerings, such as GLP-1 drugs for diabetes and weight loss this year. The company is profitable and its revenue grew 80 per cent to US$150 million in 2025.Float Financial Solutions Inc.: Toronto-based fintech Float launched its first chequing account for businesses in September as it aims to take on Canada’s big banks. It completed a US$50-million Series B led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in January 2025, which valued it at US$200 million. The money will help it expand its business offerings in banking, payments, foreign exchange and more. Float has raised US$92 million in equity capital.Next Chapter Software Inc. (Unblocked): With companies now increasingly using AI to generate code, Vancouver-based Unblocked has built a platform that gives software teams deep and quick context behind the code and has raised US$30 million to date. It plans to improve its product and grow its team and partners this year. Founder and chief executive Dennis Pilarinos said that tens of thousands of developers from large and small companies use its platform.Botpress Technologies Inc.: Montreal’s Botpress, which has developed an open-source framework that lets businesses create, deploy and manage their own AI agents and chatbots, will use its US$25-million Series B fundraise in May to improve its platform and expand its customer support, engineering and go-to-market teams. Botpress is valued at US$95 million. Investors include Framework Ventures Management LLC, Inovia Capital and Deloitte Ventures.AgileBits Inc. (1Password): Founded in 2005 and valued at US$6.8 billion, Toronto-based 1Password will double down on its agentic AI-driven digital security products this year. The company exceeded US$400 million in annual recurring revenue in 2025 compared to US$250 million in 2023. Its 180,000 enterprise clients include 30 per cent of Fortune 100 companies and names such as International Business Machines Corp., Perplexity AI Inc. and Salesforce Inc.pH7 Technologies Inc.: Vancouver cleantech startup pH7 Technologies in December closed a US$30-million Series B funding round to accelerate the commercialization of its metal extraction technology at a time when demand for critical minerals is soaring. Its client list includes multinationals such as BASF SE, BHP Group Ltd. and Mitsubishi International Corp., and it will sign expansion agreements in Japan and the U.S. this year. The company’s revenue has grown 500 per cent from 2023 to 2025.BinSentry Inc.: Kitchener, Ont.-based BinSentry raised US$50 million in Series C funding in August that will help accelerate its global expansion to bring its AI-powered feed management platform for big agricultural companies to market. It will hire up to 50 staff this year. It teamed up with U.S. agricultural giant Cargill Inc. in 2025 to distribute its products in Brazil. The company, founded in 2017 by Nathan Hoel and Randall Schwartzentruber, has raised more than US$101 million.15655871 Canada Inc. (Beacon Software): Former Instacart president Nilam Ganenthiran and ex-Sequoia Capital partner Divya Gupta founded Beacon Software in 2024 as a Toronto-based holding company to acquire smaller software and service businesses and integrate AI into the companies to supercharge growth. The company closed a US$250-million Series B funding round in November and is profitable. It expects to make an acquisition every one to two weeks this year, with a focus on North American companies.TransCrypt Solutions Inc.: Founded in 2020 and backed by billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, TransCrypt in October closed a US$15-million seed funding round to expand its blockchain-based verification and record-keeping platform to health and education records. It tripled its Canadian headcount in 2025 and its revenue has grown 30-fold over the past 2.5 years. The Toronto- and San Francisco-headquartered company said it will launch three new AI verification products and is on track to reach eight-figure revenues in 2026. It has raised nearly US$20 million.Eavor Technologies Inc.: The Calgary-based geothermal energy startup will aggressively pursue new global projects in Europe, North America and Japan and anticipates new partnerships in 2026. In 2025, it improved its technology and equipment for reduced drilling times that will help lower the cost of harnessing clean energy from below the earth’s surface. It has raised $570 million in equity funding and $160 million in grants, including from Canada Growth Fund Inc.DeepSky Corp.: Montreal’s DeepSky said looming carbon storage regulatory frameworks in Quebec and Manitoba will help it advance its direct air carbon capture projects; it launched its first site in Alberta last year. The startup has inked six carbon credit contracts, including with Microsoft and Royal Bank of Canada, with 10 more deals in advanced discussions. It has partnerships with companies such as Airbus SE and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. It has raised $130 million to date.Cyclic Materials Inc.: Cyclic Materials recovers rare earth elements from end-of-life products in industries such as automotive and renewables. Investors, including ArcTern Ventures and BMW i Ventures, have funnelled US$82.6 million — its most recent Series B funding round last January raised US$53 million — to advance its commercial demonstration facility and scale up operations.StackAdapt Inc.: AI-powered advertising and marketing platform StackAdapt has raised US$235 million to date, with its most recent round last January led by Teachers’ Venture Growth, an investment arm of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. The company is valued at US$2.5 billion.• Email: ylau@postmedia.com Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.