About the Canadian Explorers
The Canadian Explorers is the media for Canadian startups operating in the national interest, such as defence, energy, public safety, and manufacturing, with a focus on frontier technologies. This is the place to stay up to date with Canada's fastest-growing industry and the destination for the founders building the Canada of tomorrow.
The Canadian Explorers puts Canada’s most ambitious builders in one place, gives them a voice, and connects them with the capital, customers and institutions that can help them build.
Who reads The Canadian Explorers?
This is written with a knowledgeable audience in mind: venture capitalists, founders, decision-makers, members of the Canadian government, and anyone who wants to be in the know.
Our mission: give Canadian founders a voice
In the United States, the risk-taker, the creative, the founder is placed as a hero. Being bold is a positive trait. In Canada, we focus on why ideas will not work, rather than how we can make them work. Our founders have been left to large media networks, where opinions are forced to be safe and corporate.
I believe a significant reason for Canada’s brain drain is this lack of attention. It is cultural. People will flock to where they are celebrated. Only one-third of the high-potential startups created in 2024 were still headquartered in Canada a year later. Six in ten of our seed rounds now include foreign investors. Our largest pension fund went from holding 74% of its investments at home in 2005 to 12% today. The builders have noticed, and many have already left.
Our economy has fallen behind. Our quality of life has diminished. We have made ourselves the little brother of the United States. It is time that Canada takes a step of leadership. To move beyond what is believed to be possible, and to push into the frontier of what is nothing more than a dream, which we shall mould into reality.
The Defence Industrial Strategy is a generational moment
By 2035, Canada will raise its defence investment to 5% of GDP, with 70% of military purchases coming from Canadian firms, directing over half a trillion dollars into domestic industry, roughly four times its prior spending. The defence industry as it exists today cannot meet that demand. Not even close. This is not the expansion of an industry, but the building of one. It will require an industry to grow from nothing, and the only way to shift what was previously restricted by the government to the centre of Canada’s economic strategy is through a rupture.
If Canada succeeds, this will not stay contained within the defence industry. It will produce an environment in which all startups can succeed, an environment that can make Canada an international destination for innovation.
Canadian Dynamism: the impossible is possible
We have done it before. We built Shopify into a global giant. We built the Canadarm. We took Vimy Ridge and stormed Juno Beach. We sit on one of the richest territories on earth and produce a fraction of what we could. We have the talent. What we need is ambition.
I do not want to live in a country that is not a winner. Not losing is not enough. There are no consolation prizes. History will never end, and we need to be prepared. Canada should be affluent, and it should be a contributing member in shaping the world that we want to see.
The impossible is possible.
We shall remember that fortune favours the bold, and that we need Canadian Dynamism. We must not wait for permission. We must build not only what is fashionable, but what is necessary.
Start here
New? These are the best places to begin:
Canada Needs American Dynamism — the thesis: why investing in the national interest is no longer optional, and what Canada must learn from the U.S. and Europe.
30 Startups for a Sovereign Canada — the Canadian30, mapping thirty founders building sovereign capability across space, defence, energy, and the Arctic.
Paul Ziadé: The Future of Canada’s Air Defence — Chapter One of the Canadian Explorers Podcast, on building a Canadian neo-prime.
Canada’s First National Security VC: Glenn Cowan, ONE9 — the former special forces commander backing Canadian defence before it was fashionable.
Can Investment in Defence Kickstart a New Era of Canadian Innovation? — the deep dive on Canada’s historic defence budget and its spillover into deep tech and venture capital.
Get in contact
If you are building in a critical industry, get in touch.
Sponsorships
The Canadian Explorers have an incredible, targeted audience of founders, investors, and decision-makers in Canadian deep tech and defence. We welcome sponsorships. Reach out to contact@ethanmarcoux.com.
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