The Narwhal List

The Narwhal List identifies a set of young Canadian companies that have the potential to become successful on the world stage. It also points to possible financial pathways to turn these companies into Unicorns, which are closer to reaching public financial markets. The transition to Unicorn and an IPO may give our firms the ability to compete on their own merits and have the currency necessary to fund acquisitions throughout the world.

This list is created annually and this is the list for January 2019. The data for the list comes primarily from CB Insights and Crunchbase. You can read more about this list and our 2019 report here.

We have used Financial Velocity to measure companies on this list. Financial velocity measures the speed at which a company acquires and consumes capital to fuel its growth. It is defined simply as the amount of capital a company has raised divided by the number of years it has been in existence:

Financial Velocity = Capital Raised / Years in Existence

Velocity is measured over time and is expressed in millions of US dollars per year. It provides a simple and elegant tool to enable entrepreneurs and investors to gauge the financial attractiveness of young and capital-intensive firms. Achieving a high financial velocity means a company is raising more and more money over time.

It is possible for a firm to have a high velocity in its first year if it raises a significant amount of funding. In each year of its existence, it must raise more and more money to maintain that high velocity. However, if a business does not raise any money—or raises too little—in any given year, its velocity will decrease; and this may be a sign of stagnant or declining growth. Companies can graduate from the list when they get sold or have an Initial Public Offering.