For San Francisco-headquartered Versant Ventures, some of “the best returns across all our funds come from Canadian companies,” said venture partner Rami Hannoush at the MaRS Impact Health event in Toronto on Wednesday. Genesys Capital managing director Jamie Stiff said the performance of the firm’s third venture fund similarly shows its possible to “generate some top-quartile returns” with a Canadian-only portfolio. (The Logic)

Talking point: The country’s life sciences companies raised $1.38 billion in venture capital in 128 deals across 2024, per the Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association, compared to 157 transactions worth $1.19 billion a year earlier. But biotech startups still have a hard time finding funding, founders speaking at the event said. Radiant Biotherapeutics chief scientific officer Joanne Hulme said early-stage firms should focus on generating data about the effectiveness of their products to further investor interest, and policymakers should provide more lab spaces—currently scarce in Canada—to do those experiments.