A coalition of startup investors has formed a new organization to represent a part of the market they believe is overlooked by existing angel and venture capital associations. The group, known as the Canadian Startup Capital Association (CSCA), is launching as Ottawa decides how to spend $750 million earmarked for startup support.

The CSCA aims to give early-stage investors—including small venture capital funds, family offices and groups of angel investors—a formal voice in the policy debate over how the federal government should spend the money announced in the 2025 budget.

The association has named 18 founding members, including early-stage investment groups Startup TNT, Boreal Ventures, Antler Canada, Capital M Ventures, Indigenous Venture Challenge and The Firehood, among others. Collectively, they represent more than 3,500 investors and have deployed more than $750 million in early-stage capital, according to the CSCA. 

The group adds a third perspective to the debate within Canada’s venture capital scene over where the country’s most pressing financing shortages lie, and what stage of the market the money should support. 

The $750 million allocation is part of a broader $1.75 billion package announced in the 2025 federal budget to support startups and scaleups. While industry groups broadly agree the $750 million—which Ottawa initially described as “early growth-stage” capital—is necessary, they have sharply different views on how it should be used.

The Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, the country’s main VC lobby group, wants Ottawa to direct the funding to companies raising large investment rounds at the Series B stage and later. The group argues Canada lacks domestic investors capable of leading those deals and that too many firms rely on foreign capital to scale. 

The National Angel Capital Organization, meanwhile, is pushing for the money to support companies at the earliest stages, citing declining pre-seed and seed-stage investments, which they say will leave Canada with fewer and less successful startups overall. 

Members of the CSCA say both positions address part, but not all, of the problem. 

“We’re not going to solve the problem if all the money goes to late stage and we’re not going to solve the problem if all the money goes to angel,” said Jesse Wiebe, who recently left Startup TNT to lead the new group. “We’ve got to figure out a way to make the whole stack work collaboratively together.” 

The group argues the issue is not a shortage of capital, but a lack of coordination to connect investors and founders at the earliest stages, pointing to declining pre-seed deal sizes and capital becoming increasingly concentrated in fewer, later-stage deals. The CSCA believes it can “act as a connective layer” to help fix such problems. It’s trying to convince Ottawa to carve out a portion of the $750 million—between 10 per cent and 20 per cent—for early-stage companies. Two-thirds of that money would go toward funds investing in startups at the angel, pre-seed and seed stages, and the remaining third would go to programs to connect startups with financing and customers. 

The idea is to back funds that may be too small to qualify for Ottawa’s flagship VC program. The government is allocating $1 billion to the next iteration of the program, called the Venture and Growth Capital Catalyst Initiative, which is currently being designed along with the $750 million for early-growth capital. 

The CSCA is entering the fray at a time when industry representatives are still debating what problem the federal government’s budgeted growth capital is meant to solve. 

Wiebe, who has been discussing the startup funding with officials in the departments of Finance and Industry, told The Logic that Ottawa initially intended for the $750 million to go to companies raising money around the Series B stage. While those startups have typically already raised tens of millions of dollars over multiple funding rounds, CVCA data shows that Canadian capital becomes more scarce at that stage, forcing many companies to raise from foreign investors or relocate. 

NACO chief executive Claudio Rojas, however, has a different understanding of the mandate. He said last month he believed the government intended to reserve the $750 million for early-stage, high-growth startups. Based on that interpretation, Rojas’ organization is angling to capture the full allocation for startups at their earliest stages.

Gabrielle Landry, a spokesperson for the Industry Department, did not say what kind of companies the government intended to support when it announced the funding. She said the strategy is still being developed and that details will be announced later this year. 

CSCA plans to play a longer-term role in shaping federal policy beyond the current funding decision, positioning itself as a national platform for early-stage investors that can coordinate activity across regions and investor types.