Domestic investors lead just 33% of Canadian growth rounds, and the RBCx Growth Fund I targets that gap
Up to $416m of RBC's own capital will anchor a new $1.4bn fund built to keep scaling Canadian technology companies at home.
RBC said in its September 9 announcement that the RBCx Growth Fund I will primarily make direct equity investments in Canadian companies.
The fund will also give those companies commercialization opportunities, strategic partnerships, and expansion support, which the bank says traditional investors often do not offer.
The fund targets sectors where Canada's strengths in energy, agriculture, AI, healthcare, and frontier technologies intersect with its research and development base and talent pool.
RBC set out five priority areas for the fund.
- Enterprise software, covering applied AI, cybersecurity, and data and analytics
- Health tech, spanning digital health, care delivery platforms, and clinical software
- Frontier tech, covering aerospace, dual-use defence, quantum, and advanced computing
- Energy and climate tech, focused on carbon management and energy transition
- Ag tech, across precision agriculture, field automation, and supply chain
Roughly 74 percent of US growth rounds over the past decade have been led by US investors, RBC said, while in Canada just 33 percent of growth rounds are led by Canadian investors, with foreign investors filling the gap.
RBC frames that gap as the opportunity the fund is built to capture, arguing it would keep more of the ownership, influence, and economic upside of scaling companies in Canada.
RBC president and chief executive officer Dave McKay said in the bank's release that the goal is for more of the world's next companies to build and stay in Canada.
Canada has produced entrepreneurs and tech talent who want to build global companies at home for decades, according to McKay, "but when they're ready to scale, too often they get pulled elsewhere."
Sid Paquette, head of RBCx, will lead the fund. RBCx is RBC's technology and innovation arm, and the bank said it has already drawn significant interest in the fund from investors during early discussions.
Paquette said Canadian companies that scale at home attract further investment, build ecosystems, and spawn offshoots.
RBC will use its relationships across client segments to amplify that, he said in the same release.
Supporting figures cited by RBC include Canada's second-place global ranking in the 2025 Kearney FDI Confidence Index, real GDP growth expected to hold at 2.0 percent in both 2025 and 2026, and a 13 percent effective tax rate on new business investment, which RBC says is the lowest in the G7 and below the US figure of 16.9 percent.
RBC also points to advantaged access to 51 markets with a combined GDP above US$72tn, covering 61 percent of the global economy and 1.5bn consumers, and to Canada ranking first globally for share of working-age adults holding a college or university degree, at 65 percent.
The Canada Investment Summit runs September 14 to 15 in Toronto, hosted by Prime Minister Mark Carney in partnership with CPP Investments and PSP Investments.
Ottawa announced the event in April with a target of unlocking $1tn in new capital, the Prime Minister's Office said at the time.
The government's summit materials also cite 27 nation-building initiatives moving through the Major Projects Office, representing more than $192bn in investment and more than 330,000 jobs.
