AI Accelerates in Canada: Record High Investments in AI in the Past Five Years - StartUp HERE Toronto

Artificial Intelligence (AI) attracted $162M in investments across 12 deals in the first half of 2017, the highest amount of funding in Canada in the past five years, according to the MoneyTree Report from PwC Canada and CB Insights. Despite the record high in AI deals, investments in venture-backed companies based in Canada slowed down in the first half of 2017. Funding decreased to $885M in the first half of 2017 from $1.027B (14%) from the same period in 2016. The number of deals also decreased to 127 deals from 170 (25%) from the same period last year. Quarterly activity in Q2 2017 saw $400M deployed across 58 deals. This is a decline from Q2 2016 which saw $600M deployed across 58 deals.