Our company hasn't had to lay off anyone in Canada yet, but COVID-19 has been no picnic. Our projections for 2020 now show us booking 50 percent fewer deals than expected. That's a huge gap that will eventually have to be made up for – and we consider ourselves lucky. I'm not quite sure the public understands how devastating COVID-19 has been for start-ups.Mere weeks ago, companies like ours were beacons for Canada's future economy. Start-ups and entrepreneurs were scaling up their companies, fuelled by government policies that encouraged investment and the hiring of smart workers from around the world.Today, the sector wonders where the next round of investment capital will come from. It's bleeding talent. Our experience has been instructive – COVID-19 will affect the entire economy for years unless governments step in with more measures to keep start-ups viable.This was supposed to be a big year for Opus One Solutions. Utilities were beginning to see our energy-management software's potential for designing better grids. After doubling our revenue in 2019 and growing our team from 15 to 70 people in less than five years, we signed deals with a number of Canadian and international utilities and energy companies last year, and in January, we made our third straight Global Cleantech 100 list.Then the pandemic hit, bringing that growth to a screeching halt.Software development is co-operative. It starts with engineers in a room. They create the basic product before forming smaller groups for further development. Remote work happens, but it's difficult to do without some meeting in person.Reaching new customers became nearly impossible when travel stopped. Selling to utilities is a high-touch business – we need to be on site to understand needs and implement solutions. It's extremely challenging to replicate by video chat.And we're really worried about talent across the innovation community. Tech was creating about 60,000 new jobs a year in Canada, but virtually all start-ups are laying people off or at least considering it.Things are better under the revised Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, but it still only applies to the first 75 percent of $58,000. That's a lot of salary left to make up – even if you get the CEWS. Many early-stage and growing startup companies are still developing products and marketing plans; their revenues don't qualify.Once start-up employees leave, they may never return. Many will seek safer positions at bigger, multinational tech companies. That's always happened, but COVID has dramatically accelerated the process.Departing workers might be replaced with new graduates, but that's not ideal. It takes time to find candidates and train them to become valuable contributors. It took four years to develop our team. We hate to lose them at the best of times.Repeated across the start-up ecosystem, these losses will stall Canada's next wave of innovation. Vibrant companies will be decimated, leaving them at the mercy of cash-rich tech giants. Startups and their intellectual property will disappear, acquired or consolidated on the cheap. Imagine every small retailer in your community going out of business or getting bought by a big U.S. chain.This is also a problem for companies we supply to, and there are more than you think. Firms in the advanced industries we plug into drive 11 percent of national output and 10 per cent of overall employment. And the products they create help countless other businesses. If our ecosystem fails, the ripples will be severe.Ottawa has mostly been doing yeoman work trying to manage this crisis. But the measures aren't enough.For example, the recently opened $250-million federal assistance fund through the National Research Council's Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) is designed to help growth companies. We're applying, but we expect the program to be oversubscribed, which means Ottawa will need to add money or make hard choices about who survives.We need more. Ottawa needs to add flexibility to qualifying criteria for new initiatives such as the CEWS and IRAP, to help more start-ups and small companies. And governments at all levels can help by:

• Doing more to subsidize research and development.
• Issuing guidance on how Canadian companies can serve overseas customers remotely. Federal travel assistance could be pivoted to digital marketing tools and online conferences.
• Helping start-ups plan for international growth. As regions open and close to cope with COVID-19, Export Development Canada could help arrange insurance programs and shore up venture capital so companies can focus on product development and investment.

As we look to rebuild Canada's economy, we should also look to benchmark policy against countries that have already announced plans for start-ups. Britain and the European Union have perfected this model and are enhancing it for COVID-19. All this comes from our company's pandemic experience, but it isn't about us – it's about the wider ecosystem. It shows what's happening to a sector Canada has invested in, a sector meant to be a pillar of our future economy. We can't afford to let the pandemic lay waste to it. A massive loss of investment, customer acquisition and talent will stall the next wave of start-up innovation across this country unless governments step in to save it.

Hari Suthan is chief strategic growth and policy officer at Opus One Solutions