The Globe and Mail published an interesting article this evening looking at the 21 largest venture capital investments in Canadian tech over the last 18 months. It’s called: Who needs Silicon Valley? Canadian startups scoring bigger deals.

To put things into perspective, total venture dollars invested in Canada last year (2014) was around $1.9 billion. In the US, that number is estimated to be somewhere around $48 billion. So there’s a big spread here. But the Globe is arguing that there’s a shift towards medium-sized Canadian tech companies raising larger and larger rounds.

Here are the top 21 largest venture capital investments made in Canada over the last 18 months:

At the same time, there’s also an attitude change that seems to be taking place. Confidence is growing. Here’s a quote from Mike McDerment of Freshbooks from the same article:

“Our goal is to be an anchor tenant in Toronto. At Freshbooks, we want to build a global company that really contributes in some meaningful way to the city,” Mr. McDerment said. He touts the local schools and talent pool and downplays the Valley’s head start.

“The money is shameless – it’ll just go wherever. It wants the opportunities,” Mr. McDerment said. “I don’t see why Toronto can’t beat Silicon Valley.”

All of this is important because the medium-sized companies of today will hopefully become the large-sized companies of tomorrow. And that’s what you need to build a thriving startup hub. You need big successes. You need those companies going public and generating wealth for their employees and communities.

Thankfully, that seems to be where we’re headed. The first company on the list above – Shopify – is already preparing for a dual US-Canada IPO.