European startup ecosystem ranking per capita and per GDP
Update Dec 17: added new section on number of startups per country.
Recently the State of European Tech Report 2018 has been published. It contains a tremendous amount of information comparing various European countries and startup-hubs. However, most of the analysis does not take into account a country’s size in terms of population or GDP. This post aims at filling some of these gaps. In short: the goal is to analyse, which European countries “punch above their weight” when it comes to offering a flourishing startup ecosystem.
Investment per capita and per GDP
How much investment do startups in various European countries attract, compared to the size of the country’s population and economy?
Looking at investment per country size in terms of population and GDP pushes some smaller countries like Luxembourg, Iceland, or Malta higher in the ranking. Overall top ranked startup ecosystems like the UK or Sweden are also in the top performers, as they are in the original State of European Teach Report. In other words: no matter what way you look at it, they do well. Other noteworthy countries include Estonia, Finland, Denmark, and Switzerland. Other larger countries/economies besides the UK, Germany and France, are ranked stably in the middle of the top 25 performers.
Number of deals per capita and per GDP
When it comes to the number of investments (“deals”) over the last 5 years, Nordic countries as well as other smaller countries dominate the top ranks, from the larger European countries only the UK stay in the upper ranks, Germany and France move lower.
When taking into account the size of the economy Estonia is the clear winner.
Number of unicorns
While the above metrics show the investor activity per country, the number of unicorns can be seen as one measure of success.
Estonia is the winner here, both when taking into account size of population and economy. However, it should be noted that the data for Estonia here is based on a single unicorn (and similarly for a few other countries in the list).
Number of startups per capita and per GDP
The final question we try to answer is: which country has most startups per capita and per GDP unit? Note: the number of startups per country is not covered in State of European Tech Report 2018. However, similar to that report the data for this analysis was gathered from dealroom.co.
It is evident from the charts that Estonia wins by quite a margin in both dimensions. Then mostly Nordic and smaller countries follow. The UK are the top ranked from the larger European countries.
Data Sources
- All startup related data: https://2018.stateofeuropeantech.com
- Population and GDP data from Wikipedia
- Number of startups from dealroom.co
- Explore the full data set, including list that cover ranks beyond the top 25: Google Doc Link
