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Y Combinator website no longer lists Canada as a country it invests in

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Re: Y Combinator website no longer lists Canada as a country it invests in

#21

Post by greenavocado »

paleotrope wrote: post #20
greenavocado wrote: post #13

Canada's economy is dominated by a few big companies because the government makes too many rules. It costs too much to start a business here. In politics, only two parties really matter. This creates a closed system where big players stay big and new competition is crushed by red tape. Regulatory frameworks impose prohibitive compliance costs, favoring established incumbents over startups. Key sectors like banking, t…

Can't help but read this as "Canada's today is the US in 10 years..."

NVIDIA makes up 7% of the S&P 500 ETFs. We live in the United States of NVIDIA.

Re: Y Combinator website no longer lists Canada as a country it invests in

#22

Post by wahnfrieden »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #14
buckle8017 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shopify is basically the only really successful Canadian start-up. It's very hard to run a very small business here.

It's actually remarkable how difficult it's made. My only experience is here in BC. In a couple of years I've learned that it's practically punitive, and you have to want to do it really badly. The risk to reward ration is abysmal. I only continue because it's more of a passion project than an economically viable, sensible project. It could become one eventually, but my god, I'd hate to be doing this without a full t…

Can you give more details? I'm simply a sole proprietorship in Canada so not sure what I'm getting myself into.

Re: Y Combinator website no longer lists Canada as a country it invests in

#24

Post by alephnerd »

Rupok wrote: post #9

That's truly saddening. I hope there will be more VC backing in Canada because the talent is definitely there.

We in the VC, PE, and Growth Equity space invest using other people's money.

The people who have capital in Canada are uninterested in funding Canadian domiciled GPs - they mostly end up choosing American asset classes because of high returns.

Institutional investors like the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and CDQP tend to target asset classes outside of Canada due to their returns requirements being in the double digits range.

Edit: Can't reply

> TBF, the OTPP has a huge home bias - they’ve got more Canadian investments than they do US investments despite the market being less than a tenth the size

Huge by institutional investor standards but not in aggregate.

The majority of OTPP's assets are not in real estate [0] - out of $209B AUM, only $29.4B is invested in real estate globally.

Most of their Canadian assets are fixed income investments, and even then their overall Canadian assets are dwarfed by their transnational investments (primarily US and Asia).

[0] - https://www.otpp.com/content/dam/otpp/documents/reports/2024...

Re: Y Combinator website no longer lists Canada as a country it invests in

#25

Post by garbawarb »

alephnerd wrote: post #24
Rupok wrote: post #9

That's truly saddening. I hope there will be more VC backing in Canada because the talent is definitely there.

We in the VC, PE, and Growth Equity space invest using other people's money. The people who have capital in Canada are uninterested in funding Canadian domiciled GPs - they mostly end up choosing American asset classes because of high returns. Institutional investors like the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and CDQP tend to target asset classes outside of Canada due to their returns requirements being in the double dig…

Or Canadian real estate.

Re: Y Combinator website no longer lists Canada as a country it invests in

#26

Post by EGreg »

alephnerd wrote: post #24
Rupok wrote: post #9

That's truly saddening. I hope there will be more VC backing in Canada because the talent is definitely there.

We in the VC, PE, and Growth Equity space invest using other people's money. The people who have capital in Canada are uninterested in funding Canadian domiciled GPs - they mostly end up choosing American asset classes because of high returns. Institutional investors like the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and CDQP tend to target asset classes outside of Canada due to their returns requirements being in the double dig…

So what's the upshot? No Canadian VCs? I guess there's always ClearCo LOL

Re: Y Combinator website no longer lists Canada as a country it invests in

#27

Post by alephnerd »

garbawarb wrote: post #25
alephnerd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We in the VC, PE, and Growth Equity space invest using other people's money. The people who have capital in Canada are uninterested in funding Canadian domiciled GPs - they mostly end up choosing American asset classes because of high returns. Institutional investors like the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and CDQP tend to target asset classes outside of Canada due to their returns requirements being in the double dig…

Or Canadian real estate.

Most institutional investors limit real estate to around less than 5% of their portfolio.

Re: Y Combinator website no longer lists Canada as a country it invests in

#28

Post by garbawarb »

trollbridge wrote: post #19
jleyank wrote: post #11

Wonder if the founders not being US citizens or possibly even residents will hinder their ability to maintain their company. Or, whether this change increases the likelihood of being replaced when the startup shows some success. Also, being foreign in the US is a concern at the moment. Hell, being native in the US is a concern at the moment...

There's probably no nationality easier for tech workers to migrate to the U.S. with than Canada, though. (And vice versa.)

Not at all. The only benefit Canadians get compared to others is the opportunity to work for employers on TN status which is a temporary non-immigrant-intent work visa. You're not even allowed to want to immigrate if you have one. And given the political climate there's a chance it will go away at any time.

Re: Y Combinator website no longer lists Canada as a country it invests in

#29

Post by alephnerd »

EGreg wrote: post #26
alephnerd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We in the VC, PE, and Growth Equity space invest using other people's money. The people who have capital in Canada are uninterested in funding Canadian domiciled GPs - they mostly end up choosing American asset classes because of high returns. Institutional investors like the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and CDQP tend to target asset classes outside of Canada due to their returns requirements being in the double dig…

So what's the upshot? No Canadian VCs? I guess there's always ClearCo LOL

> No Canadian VCs

Pretty much.

Israel [0], China [1], and increasingly India [2][3] worked on resolving this issue by establishing funds of funds that partnered with private sector players by matching dollar-to-dollar with them to help build a VC ecosystem.

It's the same problem in the EU as well despite ECB proclamations. Heck, Norway's (ik not EU, it's EFTA) PIF has been conspicuously absent from any sort of statment of solidarity for Greenland unlike their Swedish, Finnish, and Danish peers because 25% of Norway's budget is dependent on the PIF maintaining double digit performance.

Edit: can't reply

> I think our biggest problem in Canada is total addressable market is small [...]

Israel is even smaller than Canada - 9 million people versus 40 million - and the median Israeli remains poorer [4] than the median Canada [5]. That didn't stop Israel.

Size of home country doesn't matter. The only difference is vision (and moreso lack thereof amongst Canadian and European decisionmakers).

> I don't think an Israeli founder would have trouble moving to the US if they wanted to.

They don't. In fact, Israel had an India-style brain drain to the US until the 2010s.

Heck, a little over a decade ago I had acquaintances of mine in TLV seriously considering moving their entire family to Sunnyvale for a $150k base salary job instead of earning $90k. They ended up deciding to become founders instead.

> 900M in the EU

The EU only has a population of 450M people.

[0] - https://www.yozmagroup.com/overview

[1] - https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202512/26/content_WS694e4e56...

[2] - https://idtalliance.org/

[3] - https://rdifund.anrf.gov.in/

[4] - https://www.ynet.co.il/economy/article/bjn8ppfz2

[5] - https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-pimh/en/TableMapChart/Tab...

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