Toronto-Waterloo
Metro area · Canada · Pop. 6.7M · #39 city by EV
Enterprise value · 2015–2025
Toronto-Waterloo grew 13.0× since 2015
Combined enterprise value of every tracked startup headquartered in Toronto-Waterloo that's still operating today — public and private companies combined, totalled by founding-year cohort.
Adjacent cities by EV
Startup funnel
Toronto-Waterloo's power-law funnel
From the first cheque written to a $10B+ outcome. Each arrow shows what fraction of companies at one stage graduate to the next, tracked by founding cohort.
* C→Unicorn and Unicorn→Decacorn rates are derived from current counts (no founding-cohort data); the four mid-funnel rates use Dealroom's cohort tracking.
Notable companies
Top private companies in Toronto-Waterloo
Up to 20 names per tier from Dealroom's tracked dataset. Decacorns are valued $10B+, unicorns $1B+, thoroughbreds have crossed $100M in revenue.
Academia
Toronto-Waterloo's academic flywheel
Companies founded by university alumni or spun out of research, plus the institutions producing the most founders tied to Toronto-Waterloo.
Vs. similarly-sized ecosystems
How Toronto-Waterloo stacks up
Peers chosen from the same country (Canada), sized closest to Toronto-Waterloo by combined EV. The scatter plots growth × current size — outliers in the upper-right are ecosystems compounding fastest.
Top overview
Canada — top cities
Top cities in Canada ranked by combined EV. Toronto-Waterloo's row is highlighted.
| # | Ecosystem | Combined EV | 5-yr EV growth | Unicorns | VC invested | Tracked startups |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ottawa–Gatineau | $230B | 49.9× | 2 | $85.6M | 381 |
| 2 | Toronto-Waterloo | $142B | 7.2× | 32 | $2.6B | 3,531 |
| 3 | Vancouver | $74.9B | 10.0× | 20 | $1.3B | 1,686 |
| 4 | Montréal | $59.3B | 3.5× | 12 | $552.2M | 1,045 |
| 5 | Calgary | $18B | 10.0× | 5 | $272.1M | 697 |
| 6 | Edmonton | $6.4B | 1.9× | 3 | $107.2M | 400 |
| 7 | Halifax | $2B | 5.9× | 0 | $132.4M | 185 |
| 8 | Laval | $514.6M | — | 0 | $15M | 43 |
| 9 | Brampton | $105.2M | 3.5× | 0 | $0 | 22 |
Sector concentration
Where Toronto-Waterloo punches above its weight
Sectors in which Toronto-Waterloo's share of the global unicorn pool is bigger than its overall share. A 5× over-index means Toronto-Waterloo is 5× more represented in that sector than in the global average. Source: top-hub aggregation across the 18 simplified sectors.
Premium analytics
What we don't show on this page (yet)
Sector breakdowns, founder origins, AI-talent leaderboards and live deal flow are gated to logged-in Dealroom users. Book a demo to access the full Toronto-Waterloo dataset — or see a sample on the Dealroom app.
Get the full Toronto-Waterloo ecosystem on Dealroom
Live company-by-company deal flow, full cap tables, founder pedigrees, hiring signals and revenue trajectories.