Foresight Releases New National Cleantech Survey Insights
Canada’s cleantech ventures are confident, actively seeking capital, and eager to tap international markets, according to a new national survey conducted by Foresight, Canada’s cleantech accelerator.
Here are some of the key findings from the online survey conducted in August/September 2021:
- Raising capital is the #1 need for support among cleantech ventures. More than 70% of respondents identified Capital for Growth as the business need where they are struggling most to find support, followed by Capital for R&D (57%), and Talent Acquisition (46%).
- Equity capital is preferred. Over 60% of ventures are looking for more equity than debt capital.
- Capital and connections are most needed for cleantech ventures to scale. The 3 biggest areas of support needed to help grow and scale successful cleantech companies were identified as Equity Investment at Seed Stage and Access to Non-dilutive Capital (both 73%) and Industry Connections (59%).
- Cleantech companies are hiring. Over 90% of ventures expect to hire more full-time employees during the next year.
- Wage subsidies are the top choice to solve challenges related to talent (selected by 80% of respondents).
- Expert support on scaling their business is the top choice to solve challenges associated with accessing markets (identified by 50% of respondents).
- The two biggest obstacles to working with industry are Industry Caution About Risk (39%) and Difficulty Accessing the Right People in Industry (34%).
- 89% of ventures are more confident about their prospects than a year ago.
Foresight supported over 300 ventures in 2020 and is well on track to meet or exceed these numbers in 2021 along with our national partners. We are delighted to share more information on these findings and others not highlighted.
