2021 Report on Angel Investing in Canada

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COVID-19 Challenges 4.2

Although the shift to online meetings and pitches has removed the geographical constraints on attendance, enabling more angels to participate, lockdown and the associated restrictions have created a disconnect be- tween investors and the startup community, which has reduced the opportunities for investors to engage di- rectly with entrepreneurs. Some organizations reported that some of their members had disengaged because they were not interested in investing if they could not meet the entrepreneurs in person.

Organization managers report that the COVID-19 lock- down and restrictions negatively impacted investment activity, round size, syndication and overall investor confidence. Nevertheless, although COVID-19 caused a slow-down in investing from April 2020 - September 2020, investment interest and investment activity re- bounded in the final quarter of 2020, with angels and angel organizations ending the year in a strong place as the various actors in the ecosystem adjusted to the new normal.

202 1 ANNUAL REPORT ON ANGEL I NVEST I NG I N CANADA The Chang i ng Landscape

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