Toronto has favourable taxes for small businesses, and is close to some top engineering / computer science schools in Canada and the world (University of Toronto, Waterloo, Queen's University, McMaster). All of my friends currently working on startups in Toronto (myself included) are all bootstrapped, as there's not a lot of VC money around here.
We just raised a seed round in both Seattle and the Valley, and the pricing difference here in Seattle is significant.
Whether SV pricing is fair, and there are steals to be had in Seattle, or Seattle pricing is sane, and the Valley is overheated I couldn't say. But, I will say that Seattle startup quality seems to be improving, and there's a very different startup-to-money ratio going on here.
Come on up Angels! The water's fine!
What's the track record for Seattle startups? In any given year, 97% of VC returns come from about 15 startups. In the past 5 years, how many of the ~75 startups responsible for most of the returns have come out of Seattle?