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At a moment when the status quo means moving to the United States, I have had the opportunity to speak with the founders building Canada’s most impactful technologies. According to Leaders Fund, only about 32% of Canadian-led high-potential startups founded in 2024 were headquartered in Canada. In an environment with strict regulation, risk aversion, and a lack of ambition, speed, and capital, keeping a company in Canada has required bravery, leadership and purpose. Yet, these same traits are what make a founder, or an explorer, great.
In 2026, there is a whiff that Canada may finally rise from this seemingly inevitable fate, and that the moment to build has arrived. Whether it is Canada’s international reputation, export opportunities, non-dilutive capital, or a chance to build something larger than yourself, every founder has a different reason for staying.
In nearly every interview on The Canadian Explorers, I ask, “Why build in Canada?” because for a long time, building in Canada has not been the obvious choice. To answer why some of the world’s most critical technologies are being built in the North, I compiled selected responses from 17 of Canada’s modern explorers.
For any founder deciding whether to stay or to move, these responses make the case for building in Canada.
“I think Canada is the best place to live and the best place to raise a family. There’s a joie de vivre. There’s an energy in this country and a culture that is - especially in Montreal, my favourite city in the whole world. I think you can build world-class companies from here.” — Harley Finkelstein, President of Shopify
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Why are you building in Canada?
“Well, I’m building in Canada because it’s where I’m from, it’s the country that I love, and so, I wouldn’t want to build anywhere else, first and foremost. But I think for a bunch of us who have either worked alongside DND, CAF or served within it. I think the reality is we feel a deep loyalty to go back and improve the systems and the processes that we came up under, or have worked within. Getting that opportunity to go back in and contribute, even if we’re not in uniform, that’s why we’re building in Canada, and that’s why we want to keep working with Canada and delivering success. Our country matters, and matters a great deal to us that we are faster, more effective and ready for whatever comes next.”
— Samuel Witherspoon
Why are you building in Canada?
“Well, we are Canadian founders, and we feel like Canada is an amazing place to build. We have deep and smart engineering talent pools. We’ve got a really well-recognized and trusted brand internationally, and we feel like being a Canadian company allows us to not only service the North American defence market, but it also gives us a great platform to export. You know, if you take a Canadian company and you take us abroad, we’re well-liked, and, you know, people respect Canada, and so it makes a really excellent way to get into new markets.”
— Karl Holmqvist
Why build in Canada?
“Canada is a great country capable of great feats. We have thought small, so I think there’s a real opportunity where there’s a greenfield market because we have traditionally thought small. We are now seeing some scale, impetus and signal that we’re open for business. The cliché answer would be, “We have great talent.” Sure, we do have great talent. But the reality is, there are so many gaps in the Canadian market because we’ve just ignored it or relied on the United States or other partners to provide it for us.
There’s now accountability and agency over our own military and security systems. It’s a greenfield, go grab it.”
— Glenn Cowan
Why build in Canada?
“I think Canada is very conducive to growth and to new companies. It doesn’t shush you away when you need support. And it is a healthy place to build. It is not a cesspool of 500 different startups doing the same thing and just killing your idea.
People are genuinely helpful. It’s about the Canadian spirit, and it shows in not just the way we do things, but how we operate and how we treat others. That means a lot to me, being grounded in morals and ethics, that’s reflected in how we do business.”
— Parth Mahendru
Why build in Canada?
“For me, I was born here. I’m going to stay here, and we need to defend this country. We’ve got some amazing talent to do it, so let’s have at it.”
— Dr. Mike Peasgood
On building capacity for Canada.
“I really want to build capacity for Canada. I think Canada could be an innovative country. It’s moving in that direction. We see the need, and we seem to have this new nationalism, in a healthy way, that shows we have what it takes to succeed in the global market. I want to be part of that.
It’s not about politics or what’s currently happening south of the border. Building up Canada’s innovation ecosystems is where my heart lies. We’ll stay here, but it’s also hard because we don’t have the capital infrastructure. The innovative spirit is slowly coming around, but it’s not there yet. The adoption and government-procurement cycles are very limiting.
Those are the barriers. But the promise is that we’re a highly educated country and very diverse. We see needs globally, outside of just the neighbour to the south. Products that address global concerns are often supported by the federal government; that’s a big plus for me because I came from a humanitarian-surgery background, and that was why I started this company. I don’t think I would have gotten that in the U.S.”
— Dr. Harvey Hawes
Why build in Canada?
“Selfishly, I’m just a Canadian patriot. I love the country. I think in many ways we’re just a very solid group of people who don’t change our minds from day to day. We’re a pillar of moral character in a time when it seems to be drifting a little bit. I love Canada. I think it’s a great place to build a company. I think it’s a bunch of great folks who have a lot more tenacity than the world realizes. And we’re just a stable place to build some really great tech. I’m a bit of a patriot, having spent a couple of decades in the military. I love the place. I think it’s got a lot of potential. It needs a few tweaks to unlock its full potential from an economic powerhouse perspective. We’ve got the people, we’ve got the technology, we have the natural resources, and we’re afraid to use all of those things. But I think that fear is starting to go away, and I think the mechanisms to enable true Canadian explosive growth are starting to happen.”
— Brandon Robinson
Why build in Canada?
“Because we’ve woken up.” — Kath Intson
Why build in Canada?
“Canada is perfectly positioned as the defence-innovation hub in the decades to come. We also have a massive wildfire problem that requires attention. The dilutive funding opportunities for Canadians are not as good as they are in the U.S., but we are working with Canadian companies and funds to bring about this sovereign capability for Canada specifically. We have been pulled in other directions, but we are staying true to bringing innovation that is Canadian-built for Canadians.”
— Alex Deslauriers
Why build in Canada?
“It’s my home. It’s not really a question for me. I don’t know where else I would build. I thought once about building in the United States, and it just didn’t feel like home. This is all I know. I care about my country, and I want it to be successful. Most importantly, I see that there is so much unrealized potential. I might have felt differently if it were my home, but there was no potential here: if we didn’t have the economy, supply chain, industrial base, political will, or regulatory frameworks. But we have all of that. We have the history. We have everything we could possibly need to do anything we put our minds to, and we’ve done so many great things in this country.”
— Rahul Goel
What should a Canadian founder do if they want to remain in Canada but are struggling to raise capital?
“There’s no reason why you can’t raise capital in the United States and stay in Canada. That’s what we did. The great majority of our investors are from the United States. That’s just a normal part of international business. I would encourage Canadian founders to look at the advantages of staying in Canada. There are a lot, including access to talent that is often overlooked and far more capable, and living in a place with a much better cost of living.
The people who work for Wyvern can have much better lives because the cost of living here is so much cheaper than in San Francisco. You can actually buy a house here. You don’t have to live in a studio apartment while also getting paid $400,000 a year. There are a lot of advantages to living in Canada, and there’s no reason why you can’t raise money internationally. I don’t think the Canadian investment market is yet at the place where it will support the sort of scale we need from our startups, but it is catching up.”
— Chris Robson
What is the number one advantage Canada has compared to other countries, and why build in Canada?
“We have the technical expertise. We have the capital here. And we now have the demand signal. When you’re looking to invest in defence, you need those three things. You need the capital markets to exist. You need the demand signal, which clearly exists. And we have the technical talent. One gap is: can the government figure out a way to execute on a procurement timeline, and can it trust its own private sector to do the same?”
— Eliot Pence
Why build in Canada?
“This is home. I love this country. I think it is the greatest country in the world, and this is where I want to build. I spent a lot of time living and going to school in the United States. Canada is a fantastic place. The ethos here is incredible. It is challenging to build here. It is more challenging than it is in some other places, but we have a fantastic ecosystem and an amazing country.
There is a need for people to build more at this moment. The sentiment can be quite negative right now. You speak to your friends, and they want to leave Canada. They think the economy is shit, tax rates are high, public safety is low, or their car gets broken into. We are all hearing these things in our friend groups. It does not make me want to run. It makes me want to build, and to build the best Canada we can. When the going gets tough, the tough get tougher.
That is why we show up at CSMC every day. That is why the team is motivated by the strategic mission. We are here to build national, critical, and strategic technology for Canada, and to compete globally.”
— Daniel Sax
Can Canada’s historic brain drain become a competitive advantage?
“We are definitely seeing that. There are a lot of Canadians across many of the top tech and engineering companies. We’ve brought nine folks and their families home, and if it’s not them, their partner is Canadian, and we brought them home that way. We’re very excited to be part of the brain gain now. I think the biggest thing is they’re attracted to the ambition, and they’re attracted to the mission. They understand that it’s important for the country.
Everyone eventually wants to put their roots back in Canada. But they have never really had the opportunity, whether it’s pay, opportunity, or the mission, that you’re actually working on. Ambition attracts ambition. If you want to attract the top Canadian engineers who have been away from the country for 10-plus years, you’re not going to bring them back if you’re building just another AI company or just another defence company.
It’s got to be incredibly ambitious, where they’re like, wow, I want to move my family. There is a lot of friction in uprooting everything and coming to Canada for a seven-month-old company pursuing this ambitious goal of building launch capability for Canada.”
— Hugh Kolias
On competing globally from Canada.
“On price, Canadian companies can compete if they build their products themselves. I do it right now. I am beating Chinese competitors on compliance and regulatory approvals, and on price point. You can compete with the Chinese; we beat the Americans out of the parachute market. We spent two years redesigning the electronics, certifying and testing them. That stack can now be reused across multiple products.
A Canadian company can compete and win in robotics, but it must build from the ground up and put in the time. We have been doing this for a decade now.”
— Josh Ogden
On showing what can be built in Canada.
“I want Reaction Dynamics to change the launch paradigm and, just as importantly, become a success story that Canadians can look to and say: we can do this here. We can build quantum computers here. We can build world-leading AI companies here. We can launch from here. You are not necessarily missing anything by building in Canada. Canada is a great place to start a company. It is difficult, but starting a company is never easy.”
— Bachar Elzein
How do you view Canada’s position globally?
“Canada has a halo effect by virtue of its standing with our allies and in the world today. Is it getting easier to build? Yes. Is it easy enough? No.
There’s still a lot of work to be done, right? I think that’s really about mentality. There’s this whole thing right now about differentiating ourselves from the U.S., and I don’t think that’s the best way to look at it. We just need to be the best in the world.
To do that, we need this sort of maniacal focus and energy toward building the best companies we can, and helping other Canadian companies do that as well, to give Canada the best shot. Governments come and go. Parties come and go. Prime ministers come and go. The programs of record and the companies supporting those programs will stay.”
— Bashir Khan
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