Among newer tech companies, Farmers Edge Inc., which uses data and artificial intelligence to boost crop yields, raised C$143.8 million in an offering in February
Surging equity markets and a blossoming tech sector fuelled the biggest first-quarter crop of initial public offerings (IPOs) by Canadian companies in 15 years.
32 Canadian firms, so far this year, have announced IPOs set to raise a combined $3.26 billion. The total is more than 10 times the $305.2 million of deals announced by this time last year, and the most for a first quarter since 2006, when $3.58 billion of IPOs were announced.
Drawing programming talent to the country and spawning start-ups that are now ready to make the leap to public markets, global tech companies including Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google have made major investments in their Canadian operations over the past decade. Those companies are finding healthy demand from Canadian fund managers who have long wanted to fill out their portfolios with home grown tech names.
“We’ve had environments in the past where there was lots of demand from investors, but we just didn’t have the supply of companies that were ready to take that step to become public,” Tyler Swan, managing director and head of equity capital markets at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, said in an interview. “Now there is a very long pipeline of companies that are taking those steps toward becoming public”.
Working on four offerings that generated C$414.9 million ($329.9 million) in league-table credit, CIBC holds the top spot for Canadian IPO work this year.
Tech company Telus International CDA Inc.’s $1.06 billion IPO, with the shares trading since February, and space robotics and satellite firm MDA Ltd.’s C$500 million planned offering, announced last week are the largest deals of this year.
Among newer tech companies, Farmers Edge Inc., which uses data and artificial intelligence to boost crop yields, raised C$143.8 million in an offering in February. Dialogue Health Technologies Inc., which operates a virtual health-care and wellness platform, announced a C$100 million IPO last month.
The success of some of those tech companies is feeding into a cycle that encourages more entrepreneurs to start or maintain their businesses in Canada and keeps more experienced tech founders in the country as well, Swan said. There’s also more Canadian venture capital becoming available, along with continued early stage funding from the US, he said.
“There is a bit more encouragement that you can build a great company in Canada,” Swan said. “So when some companies have success in building their businesses here and ultimately go public here, it creates enthusiasm and a comfort level for other companies to do the same”.
The year’s hot start for Canada’s IPO market looks poised to continue, Swan said. Bankers across the equity capital markets are working long hours keeping up with a surge of companies from a range of industries seeking to raise money, he said.
“There is a very deep pipeline, not just in technology, but broad-based,” Swan said. “The pipeline is even deeper than what we’ve seen in terms of actual IPO activity”.
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