CALGARY — Calgary’s tech sector continues to see rapid growth, outpacing global trends and increasing in value by 13% in 2025 as international markets declined.According to Platform Calgary’s newly released 2025 Impact Report, membership in the group increased to 869 tech companies last year, up 28% year over year, and painting a picture of expansion across investment and job growth.“It’s been a busy year, let’s put it like that,” Platform Calgary interim CEO Jen Lussier told attendees at a recent event. In total, those members generated $235 million in annual revenue and secured $323.9 million in investment this year alone, pushing cumulative capital raised past $1 billion since 2018.“I couldn’t be prouder today to be standing here talking about the accomplishments we’ve had in the last year,” Lussier said.Platform directly supported 1,563 founders through its programming this year — a 36% increase over 2024.In 2025, 360 investors and more than 400 founders engaged through Platform’s investor relations activities, with 55 founders formally matched to investors.Currently, 64,600 Calgarians work in technology, with 24,500 tech jobs added over the past five years..Platform Calgary now says the city is among North America’s fastest-growing tech talent markets, citing a 61% increase in tech talent growth in 2025.Lussier said the Innovation Centre’s traffic is one indicator of that vibrancy.In 2025 alone, 172,502 people walked through the doors of the Platform Innovation Centre on 9 Avenue S.E., with monthly attendance nearing the 30,000 mark by year-end.“The reason we track this is that it’s a vibrancy index,” she said.“We know when you come to Platform, you’re either a founder, a student, a job seeker, a career changer, an investor, a mentor or coach or subject matter expert, or a support partner or service organization that’s helping these companies.”Looking forward, Platform Calgary projects more than 300,000 visitors in 2026 and plans to support more than 1,200 founders through its programming.Speaking at the event, Alberta’s Minister of Technology and Innovation, Nate Glubish, placed Calgary’s rise in longer-term context.“In 2004, there were maybe two or three million dollars a year being invested into Alberta tech companies,” he said.“Fast forward to the last three years, we’ve had $2.1 billion invested into Alberta tech companies. That’s something to be excited about.”.Early-stage investment has grown from roughly $30 million annually in 2017 to about $700 million per year in each of the past three years, he said.Glubish noted that Calgary had been the epicentre of that growth.The province has also seen about a dozen tech companies reach unicorn status — achieving valuations of $1 billion or more — while programs under Alberta’s Technology and Innovation Strategy have supported the creation of 8,200 direct jobs, alongside hundreds of patents and intellectual property transfers.Still, Glubish acknowledged ongoing challenges — particularly around commercialization and scale-up capital.“We have done a very poor job as a country of commercializing those ideas and protecting those ideas and turning them into patents and protectable intellectual property,” he said, arguing that too many Canadian innovations ultimately generate wealth for foreign investors.“We want to make sure that when we have a big success, the wealth created by those successes stays in the hands of Albertans and can be repatriated into the next ideas, and the next companies, and the next investments,” Glubish said.
