Canadian Venture Capital Activity: An Analysis of Trends and Gaps (1996–2002)

Acknowledgements

This analysis of venture capital (VC) activity would not have been possible without help and input from many players in the Canada VC industry and the business community. Industry Canada's Small Business Policy Branch and the Industry Portfolio Office thank everyone who participated in this process.

Key to its realization has been Macdonald & Associates Limited, which is the source of information on the Canadian VC and private equity markets that serves as the basis for this report (www.canadavc.com). In addition to its quarterly and annual reports on VC activity in Canada, Macdonald & Associates Limited also provide a Web-based analytical tool, the VC Analyst, which facilitated the necessary calculations over the 1996-2002 period. We would like to thank Macdonald & Associates Limited for their review and feedback on the analysis.

Other key sources of information for this analysis included the Canada's Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (www.cvca.ca), Réseau Capital in Quebec (www.reseaucapital.com), Goodman and Carr LLP (www.goodmancarr.com), McKinsey & Company (www.mckinsey.com), Venture Economics (www.ventureeconomics.com), the National Venture Capital Association (www.nvca.org) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (www.pwcmoneytree.com).

The level of practical collaboration among the Industry Portfolio agencies has also been essential to this analysis. They have provided valuable input, including the information on regional and provincial perspectives and programs related to VC. A list of working group members appears in Appendix F.

Finally, we would like to acknowledge the participation of all individuals and venture capitalists from different organizations, who provided useful comments and feedback on this analysis.

We hope that this analysis will contribute to improving our common understanding of the Canadian VC market, and to the development of sound and efficient policies and programs aimed at ensuring a strong and efficient private sector VC industry that is able to support Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises in their quest for growth and innovation.

Thank you.