Manitoba is not short on startups. It is short on companies that stay, scale, and compound value within the province.
A missed call on a job site sparked an AI startup that’s now helping home-service businesses answer every opportunity.
By Pam Fedack
For more than a decade, global innovation has been shaped by the pursuit of the “unicorn”, a term coined in 2013 by venture capitalist Aileen Lee to describe rare billion-dollar startups. That model prioritized rapid scaling, valuation growth, and abundant capital, built for an era of low interest rates and easy venture funding. That era is ending.
Manitoba, and Canada more broadly, now face a more consequential question: not how to create more startups, but how to ensure that the ones created here scale, remain, and compound economic value locally. This shift from creation to retention will define the next phase of economic competitiveness.
Across Canada, startup formation is not the constraint. Retention at scale is. Royal Bank of Canada has launched a $1 billion growth fund to support scaling firms, with CEO Dave McKay noting that Canadian entrepreneurs often feel compelled to seek foreign capital to grow, frequently relocating their companies in the process. The Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) has raised similar concerns: Canada continues to produce startups, but struggles to build large, enduring companies anchored at home. The result is a structural leakage: innovation is created locally, but long-term value is realized elsewhere. This is not a talent problem. It is a system design problem.
As North Forge CEO Joelle Foster recently noted, “Manitoba’s edge has never been about chasing someone else’s playbook. Our real opportunity is to build companies that endure, keep them scaling here, and surround them with an ecosystem where mentors, capital, and partners show up for founders at every stage. That is how momentum becomes lasting economic power.” That insight captures the shift underway. The challenge is no longer startup creation; it is building the conditions for companies to scale and remain anchored.
Manitoba is already experiencing both sides of this reality. The province has built a credible early-stage ecosystem through institutions such as North Forge and Manitoba Innovates, alongside a growing base of founders, operators, and investors. Venture capital investment in Manitoba surged by 6,250% between 2024 and 2025, according to CVCA data, signaling real momentum and investor confidence. As companies grow, they encounter a “missing middle”, the gap between startup traction and scale-stage support. This is where companies leave. And where economic value leaves with them.
The pattern is visible in practice. SkipTheDishes demonstrated that globally relevant companies can be built in Manitoba, while also showing how value can migrate as firms scale. More recently, TAIV, emerged from North Forge’s RampUp Weekend in 2018 and raised $13 million (USD) earlier this year. This reflects how some companies are beginning to navigate this transition, demonstrating that retention at scale is possible when the right conditions are in place.
The question is therefore not whether Manitoba can produce startups. It already does. The question is what kind of companies should Manitoba be building?
The answer is not unicorns, companies optimized for rapid valuation and exit, but Bison Startups: firms designed for endurance, operational strength, and long-term economic compounding within the province.
Unlike unicorns, which often depend on continuous external capital inflows and exit-oriented growth paths, Bison Startups are built for resilience. They prioritize execution over narrative, fundamentals over volatility, and durability over speed alone. They are designed not just to grow but to stay, anchor, and reinvest.
Building these companies requires more than capital. It requires the Bison Economy Loop, a system built around five stages: Align, Charge, Build, Fortify, and Sustain.
At its core is a simple progression: companies begin by solving real, scalable problems, convert early traction into repeatable growth, and then build the operational discipline, leadership depth, and governance needed to compete globally. The decisive moment comes at scale. Companies that can access growth capital, experienced leadership, and domestic demand anchors remain rooted and expand. Those that cannot do not fail; they leave. The firms that successfully navigate this transition become Bison Startups: companies that scale globally while staying locally anchored, compounding economic value rather than exporting it at the moment it matters most.
Manitoba’s opportunity is to convert this framework into strategy. Through the proposed Economic Development Agency, the province can align the critical levers that determine retention: growth-stage capital, executive talent, procurement pathways, and global market access. Individually, these tools already exist. The opportunity is to integrate them into a coherent system designed not just to start companies but to keep them in the province. As Minister of Business Jamie Moses noted, “Having one organization that can spearhead that on behalf of all regions of the province is a good move to make Manitoba more competitive.”
Manitoba does not need to replicate Silicon Valley. Its structural advantages are different: affordability, sector depth, institutional support, and founders accustomed to operating under constraint. In a more disciplined global capital environment, these are not disadvantages, they are advantages waiting to be structured.
The task now is simple: turn Manitoba’s structural strengths into companies that endure. The jurisdictions that will define the next decade will not be those that produce the most startups. They will be the ones that keep the most companies that matter. Startups create momentum. Bison Startups create economic power. And economic strength is not built by what a province starts, but by what it keeps and compounds. That is the promise of the Bison Economy.