SDTC’s 2023 Annual Public Meeting brings together key stakeholders in the Canadian innovation ecosystem

What trends are we seeing in today’s investment environment and what’s the outlook for the future? What can we do together as a country to propel innovation-driven growth? These were just a few of the topics discussed today, as part of SDTC’s  2023 Annual Public Meeting. 

The virtual APM kicked off with a speech from SDTC Board Chair Annette Verschuren on the many highlights of the organization’s 2022-23 fiscal year. It then featured a lively panel discussion on the current state of Canada’s innovation ecosystem moderated by SDTC President & CEO Leah Lawrence. The discussion centered on Innovation-Driven Growth and panelists included Susan Rohac, Managing Partner, Climate Tech Fund at BDC, Leah Nguyen, Chief Investment Officer at InBC Investment Corp., Carl Landry, Managing Director at Canada Infrastructure Bank, Geneviève Bouthillier, Vice-President, Private Medium-sized Enterprises at CDPQ,and Raj DasGupta, CEO at Electrovaya.  

For Canada to be a leader in the new economy and generate economic prosperity while creating better environmental outcomes, SDTC knows the importance of connecting the people and places where innovation happens. This can be accomplished by listening and learning from Canadian entrepreneurs, robust local ecosystems, inclusive of all people and perspectives are built and strengthened. 

“Canada has made significant strides in building out the start-up ecosystem in emerging sectors over the past decade, and numerous scale-up companies have emerged and are gaining traction on the global stage. Yet, gaps remain in scale-up financing and other areas like the availability of experienced board members and strategic advisors and private sector customers. To effectively accelerate innovation-driven growth in Canada, we need to gain a deeper understanding of these gaps and work together to close them.” 

Leah Lawrence, President & CEO, SDTC 

2022–2023 was a year of focusing on ecosystem growth and resiliency. Here are a few highlights of SDTC’s our year in review: 

• Despite market headwinds, our portfolio companies raised $3.5 billion, beating the previous record high of 2021. 
• A record 115 new projects were approved in 2022–2023, bringing our total active projects to 229 as of March 31, 2023. 
• We approved $196 million SDTC funding to sustainable technology projects -the highest level of funding for companies in our history. 
• 24,492 estimated total jobs (direct and indirect) were generated attributable to SDTC-funded projects. 
• An estimated 24.7 megatonnes CO2e  of  annual greenhouse gas emissions were reduced as a result of SDTC-supported technologies. This reduction is equivalent to taking almost 7.5 million cars off the roads every year. 
• Among the companies we funded last year, 35% in the seed stream and 22% in the start-up and scale-up streams were led by women. 
• We added 15 new accelerator partners to our network, bringing the total to 85.  
• With $4.26 billion in follow on financing from public and private investors, combined with $1.71 billion of SDTC funding to projects, our total portfolio value grew to $5.97 billion. 

 For more information on SDTC’s activities and results for 2022-23, please consult our Annual Report.