Canada’s technology sector is having a year unlike any other. In the first half of 2021, Canadian tech companies raised nearly as much venture capital as they did in all of 2019. Twenty-two companies have had financing rounds of $100-million or more during this stretch—while 10 achieved “unicorn” status, now valued at over US$1-billion each. One of those unicorns is Toronto-based Clearco—founded in 2015 to help entrepreneurs raise money through revenue-sharing agreements. This past June, Clearco raised $215 million in a round led by Japan’s SoftBank; this followed a round in April that quintupled Clearco’s valuation to $2 billion. In this season finale for Disruptors, an RBC podcast, host John Stackhouse speaks with Clearco co-founder and Dragons’ Den superstar Michele Romanow about the crazy pandemic year for Clearco, her entrepreneurial journey—she’s also founded a coffee shop, caviar fishery and mobile couponing app—and what she thinks it will take for Canada’s booming tech sector to continue to “kick butt and take names.”
To learn about Clearco and its financing model for entrepreneurs, follow this link.
If you want to understand more about the record VC year for Canadian tech startups—and how that looks in the global context—check out CB Insights’ State of Venture Q2’21 Report via this link (registration required).
In this episode, John also mentions a new report from the RBC Economics and Thought Leadership Team called
The Coming Creativity Boom: How human ingenuity will power the 2020s. To read it, go to RBC.com/creativity.