This echoes what I’ve been told. Founders at a startup I spoke to were from Switzerland and Canada. Tried raising capital in Toronto (where Canadian finance is happening) and Vancouver and the response they got was lackluster.
Investors basically wanted to match the returns they would get simply by parking their money in real estate, as well as the (non-existent) risk profile. This was especially true in Vancouver where they actually had someone rescheduling at the last minute because he was involved in a bidding war for some property in partnership with a foreign buyer.
So they ended up coming down to the Bay to get funding. I assume most of the owners are here in America now (they are still quite early stage, at least, the cofounders are and so are most employees).