Despite small decline in deals, Waterloo Region remained a healthy startup ecosystem in 2020
Waterloo Region startups raised $689.6 million for all of 2020 — up 107 percent over 2019, according to Hockeystick’s latest ecosystem report for the region.
The overall funding was driven by three notable deals in the region, including Faire, which raised $222 million, Miovision, which raised $120 million, and ApplyBoard, which raised a $100 million Series C in May 2020 and a $70 million extension following investor interest five months later. ApplyBoard and Faire also represented two sectors that saw a boom as COVID-19 forced businesses to embrace online services: retail and EdTech.
Wholesale marketplace Faire, which is headquartered in Silicon Valley with an office in Kitchener, managed to push the marketplace vertical to the top of funded areas, followed by SaaS, healthtech, analytics, and AI. Even with Faire’s $222 million round removed from the quarter’s total, Waterloo Region remains up 34 percent in total funding compared to Q4 2019. However, removing Faire’s deal, Q4 funding was $54 million, a 57 percent drop from Q3 2020.