Maverix invests at the growth stage, out of Toronto, writing $25–75M minority cheques into sovereignty infrastructure, defence, and dual-use, and we've been building Canada's Sovereign market (and lobbying for it) for a decade. Our insight from the Canadian market is that Canada builds around one customer (our Department of National Defense), but for sixty years that customer sent roughly seventy cents of every capital dollar south, through NORAD and the Defence Production Sharing Agreement, and treated its domestic industry as a branch plant. That model ended in 2025. The budget went from ~1.4% of GDP to 2% in a single fiscal year, with 3.5% for core capability and 5% pledged by 2035; procurement was pulled out of five departments into a new single Defence Investment Agency; and the new 2026 Defence Industrial Strategy set a 'Buy Canadian by default' rule with a 70% domestic-share target and IP ownership, not just workshare, as the scoring metric. So the Canadian playbook is different from both our EU and US neighbours. And the capital is shaped differently too: Canada's constraint is that growth-stage capital for defence simply didn't exist. That gap is now, somewhat, filling in.

*Mark Maybank is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Maverix Private Equity, where he leads firm operations and investment strategy. A seasoned investor, director, advisor, and entrepreneur, Mark brings deep cross-sector experience across financial services, technology, health and wellness, media, telecom, energy, and advanced manufacturing. Prior to founding Maverix, he was President and COO of Canaccord Genuity Corp., where he led the global expansion of its wealth management and capital markets businesses. Mark holds Chartered Accountant and Chartered Business Valuator designations from Deloitte and currently serves on the board of Miovision.