Benjamin Bergen became CEO  of the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (CVCA) on January 5, 2026. CVCA represents investors who back Canada’s most innovative and high-growth companies.

Before joining CVCA, Bergen served as president of the Council of Canadian Innovators, where he led a national organization focused on improving the policy and market conditions that enable Canadian firms to scale and compete globally.

His leadership at CVCA focuses on strengthening the conditions investors rely on to deploy long-term capital, build durable companies, and support economic growth across Canada.

Over nearly a decade, his work has centered on innovation policy, competitiveness and regulatory reform, with a strong emphasis on how capital flows through the economy and how investment environments are shaped.

Bergen is a trusted advisor to governments on innovation and competitiveness and currently serves on Canada’s National AI Task Force. He is also a founding board member of the Canadian SHIELD Institute, which advances policy solutions to strengthen Canada’s economic resilience, sovereignty and long-term growth.

Throughout his career, he has worked closely with investors, founders and policymakers, supporting companies as they navigate growth, regulation and global expansion.

Bergen, in a Q&A interview with Research Money’s managing editor Mark Lowey, discusses his perspective on how to best spend new federal funding for a venture capital strategy; the lack of venture capital in Canada; how best to manage foreign direct investment in the country; whether AI is drawing investment away from other important areas; and CVCA’s national conference later this month.

R$: First, what’s your reaction to Prime Minister Mark Carney's announcement of the $25 billion sovereign wealth fund?

BB: I haven't seen sort of like the deep specifics of it, but figuring out how to crowd in more domestic investments into the country is positive, and I think this type of attention on it is overall good for the country.

R$: You have some thoughts on how the federal government should spend the $1.75 billion allocated in Budget 2025 to a venture capital strategy, particularly the $750 million allocated in the “early-growth stage funding envelope.” Can you summarize your perspective and the rationale and strategy underlying it?

BB: The thing that I would say is you've got to actually look at Budget 2025 and what they [the federal government] were specifically looking at achieving. So you've got $1 billion that's being allocated basically to fund pre-seed, seed, Series A, and be sort of a continuum of the support that existed through the other three VICIs [Venture Capital Catalyst Initiatives]. And then if you look at where the government specifically put the $750 million allocation, the way that they frame it is for growth companies and supporting them on their journey.

So when you take the two pieces of it together, you see that there's an attempt to try and really look at the entire capital stack and figure out how to crowd in more capital, but more importantly in that early-growth company stage – domestic growth capital. We worked in concert with the federal government to basically collaborate on what the policy objectives were meant to achieve, and ultimately how do you basically build up the continuum of the capital stack. So since the first VICI, which was created by [former federal finance minister] Jim Flaherty, you had subsequently three other programs basically launched to support it.

And the exciting thing is that as a country, we're now at the part of the journey where we have so many growth firms that are ready to scale and grow that we now need domestic capital to support their growth, not so much for them as companies, but for us as a country to be able to upside from all of the incubation and investment dollars that we've spent for them to achieve there. And so we worked collaboratively with the government on what that specifically would look like and how it should be allocated. It’s through figuring out ways of getting a multiplier into how we can turn that $750 million into more opportunities for growth companies.

R$: Do you have any idea when the government will actually announce how they're going to distribute that funding?

BB: Similar to probably the way that they've been doing it with the VICI program, it will go out to a RFP [request for proposals] process and then either be delivered through either an agency or a specific mechanism. So my guess is that probably by the middle of May we'll begin to hear what the government is thinking on that. 

R$: How would you respond to that argument put forward by some that the $750 million should be spent on pre-seed and seed funding, and that we've got to make sure the “little trees” are watered really well at those funding stages or we'll never be able to grow companies into “big trees” at the later growth stages?

BB: If you look at the actual data that's out there, we as a country actually do support our incubation of firms. And if you look at where initial investment dollars occur, they're overwhelmingly coming from Canadians.

So the piece here is that you've got to actually look at is the full capital stack and building a flywheel. When you have investments at an early stage, whether that be through government grants or subsidies or other dollars, there is obviously support for that. If we want to build up the full continuum, which is what you see in other successful innovation economies, you also have to make sure that you're returning capital at the period of growth. So this [new federal funding] is really meant to be part of a continuum of things.

R$: There are now multiple perspectives on how to spend this new federal funding to support venture capital funding. And when I look at it all, my conclusion is we need billions of dollars, not $750 million, in those later-stage funding rounds. Is that a fair assessment?

 BB: I think when you look at when these two [venture capital funding] policies were enacted, I'm a bit puzzled why people keep disassociating the two envelopes of capital [$1 billion and $750 million] as if they're somehow distinctive. What was communicated by the government is that if they just wanted more money in pre-seed, seed and Series A, they just would have made VCCI $750 million more. The fact that they delineated it as a separate group focused on growth companies indicates where they want the money to go.

So this has to be viewed really as a continuum, not as something that is meant to be directed back towards pre-seed, seed and Series A, because if that's what the government had been outlining, that's where they would have put the emphasis.  I don't think viewing them [the funding envelopes] as sort of separate entities is necessarily helpful in terms of understanding what are our policy objectives as a country. So I think you've got to look at them as really a series and not sort of truncated forms of capital.

R$: Startup founders and others often lament the lack of venture capital in Canada, especially compared with the U.S. What factors are behind this lack of Canadian venture capital and how is the CVCA working to change that picture? What tools are required, such as a targeted capital gains tax incentive, the Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption, rewarding interprovincial investment, allowing businesses to deduct a greater share of their investment costs upfront, etc.?

BB: I think there are definitely programs like VGCCI [Venture and Growth Capital Catalyst Initiative] and the $750 million where there's an opportunity there to specifically crowd in more capital. So looking at those types of incentives is definitely one mechanism.

I think the other big thing is that you can also look at really is the tax policy, So are we creating a tax environment where we are competitive with our southern neighbors, and  you can look at specifics where we don't have an equivalent. The big one that I would say is the U.S. qualified small business stock. There’s a type of policy that we'll be advocating for in the upcoming pre-budget submission that we're going to put into government [to make Canada] tax competitive – if the Delta [difference] is too large between us and the U.S., where is it easier to make superior returns. So that’s one additional area.

The other I would say is what is the environment we are building, not just from a tax regime perspective, but really from a place where Canadian firms are able to be successful. One of the reasons why I took on this role [at the CVCI] is obviously I had been at the Council of Canadian Innovators previously working with growth companies. But growth capital, in order to get superior returns from investment, requires stronger firms. So are we building an environment where our firms have the best ability to compete? And the analogy that I'll give you is a little bit like a triathlon. You’ve got to be good at swimming, running and cycling in order to win a gold medal. It’s very similar in the innovation economy or in scaling firms. You've got to be good at talent, customers and capital.

We can obviously work to crowd in as much capital as possible. But if we don't have, let's say, the talent or the customers in order to support growing those firms, it's really hard for companies to get those returns. So what we've called for is – looking at how is government and how are our large domestic companies actually procuring – Canadian solutions.

Let’s say we're building world-class technology in, whether it be life sciences or whether it be in [defence] products. Who are the customers of it? And is government actually purchasing? Or are our large firms? So you've got to take a much more holistic approach of looking at how are you driving capital dollars into the ecosystem through those types of superior returns.

R$: What role should foreign direct investment play in Canada, and should there be any restrictions or requirements on such investment to ensure the benefits flow to Canadians?

BB: I think foreign investment in Canadian companies, I would say, inherently isn't a problem. But some of the challenges that we do face [include] who is leading the rounds of investment.

When a foreign investor leads a Canadian company's growth financing, strategic decisions, including hiring, expansion, acquisition targets and exit paths, tend to reflect the investor's network and market orientation. So the company doesn't leave immediately, but the trajectory shifts. And that ultimately has consequences for the companies themselves, because they can obviously scale and grow, and that's very positive for them.

But that has downstream consequences for Canada's ultimate ability to build capacity and to build domestically headquartered firms that remain anchored here and making decisions here. So when we are we looking to incentivize foreign investment –  because it's critical that we get that additional capital – it often can be very smart money where it opens up markets and talent and opens up deeper networks.

But the challenge that we've really seen in this country is that if you look at the top firms in Canada that are right now trying to raise or have raised $50 million or more, almost 80 percent of every dollar is coming from south of the border, meaning that all of the upside is ultimately going there. So that has, as I mentioned earlier, some consequences as it relates to decision-making and ultimately where the scaling and growing happens.

The other piece I would say is that we do have specific policies in place. We do have the Invest Canada Act that does review any deals that would put or pose national security or defense technology risks or are critical infrastructure. Obviously, those [restrictions] need to be upheld and specifically looked at. 

R$: AI is a very hot area for investment right now, certainly in the U.S. Are we also seeing this in Canada, and is there any concern that the investment focus on AI is drawing investment away from other important areas that need capital?

BB: The idea of it taking away from other areas, I would say AI is obviously dominant right now. What our data has essentially showed is that roughly $5 billion in Canadian venture capital or close to two-thirds of all investments for the year [going to AI ventures]. So it does show real concentration in that area.

But I don't think that that's just a Canadian phenomenon. I think that that is a global phenomenon that we're seeing. So there is a crowding in.

And Canada's challenge is not a shortage of capital in absolute terms, as I mentioned, but is more in how we actually get those domestic dollars deployed within it.

R$: Can you tell us a bit about CVCA’s Invest Canada ’26 national venture capital and private equity conference May 26 to 28? Who should be at this conference and why?

BB: I think this is obviously Canada's largest private capital conference in the country. This year it's taking place in Halifax.

With that, we've got a real focus on ocean technology, but more importantly on defense and dual-use technology So for those folks that are team players in the ecosystem, this is a fantastic opportunity to network, to socialize, to learn, and to really look at some of the trends that we're beginning to see and what that looks like from an investment perspective. We’re encouraging folks to come out and join us in Halifax.

Last year, the conference was in Calgary. It was sold out with 700 senior investment professionals. We’re hoping to do the same this year.

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