Canadian fintech corporations raised $1.62 billion in the primary half of 2025, with digital property and synthetic intelligence (AI) startups taking the lion’s share of contemporary funding, in response to KPMG Canada’s Pulse of Fintech report.
While fintech funding slowed globally, Canadian traders maintained regular assist for ventures on the intersection of finance and rising know-how. The report singled out corporations constructing blockchain-based infrastructure and AI-driven monetary instruments as main development areas.
“If we look at the first half of 2025, it’s clear that digital assets have re-emerged as a magnet for investor interest, despite the broader contraction in venture investment values,” mentioned Edith Hitt, a companion at KPMG Canada.
AI investments aren’t stunning, given its monumental enlargement in current years. However, Canadian traders turning to digital property funding would possibly catch some off guard, as the chance issue of the crypto market has all the time been up for debate amongst traders.
However, with extra pro-crypto laws in the U.S. and additional institutional push legitimizing sure components of the digital property sector, the dialog has clearly began to shift.
“Crypto’s resurgence coming out of 2024 was reinforced by a more constructive regulatory tone in the U.S., the dismissal of the Coinbase lawsuit, and tangible mainstream adoption in stablecoin use cases,” Hitt added.
Cautious traders
While the $1.6 billion quantity could appear massive, zooming out, the numbers have truly dropped year-over-year because of macro occasions reminiscent of tariffs and better rates of interest. The report mentioned the primary half of 2025 information is decrease than $2.4 billion invested in the Canadian fintech business in the identical time interval final yr, and $7.5 billion invested in the second half of 2024.
This doesn’t suggest traders are shying away from fintech funding; somewhat, there may be a number of ‘dry powder’ ready to be deployed, mentioned Dubie Cunningham, a Partner in KPMG in Canada’s Banking and Capital Markets Practice. Investors are trying for extra “quality companies” and urge for food for “maturing mid-to-large stage private equity deals,” she added.
‘Strong’ second half
In reality, KPMG Canada’s report defined that this pattern of investing in AI and digital property is prone to proceed into the latter half of 2025.
“Investor interest in digital will remain strong in the second half of the year and into 2026, driven by the U.S. administration’s bullish view and lighter regulatory touch on cryptoassets, said Hitt.
“The focus might be on infrastructure, funds rails, and tokenization platforms that may scale in compliant, built-in methods,” she added.
Hitt said things will only heat up more on the AI side, “as extra fintechs more and more undertake and deploy agentic AI options throughout areas like private finance, funding administration, fraud detection and lending.”
