Supportive policies

Though we didn't cover every European country in our analysis (yet!), we prioritised as many as we could, particularly focusing on those with the largest share of European VC capital invested.

A few honourable mentions:

• In France, the Tibi initiative, launched by President Macron in 2019 to "finance the Fourth Industrial Revolution", after 18 months secured pledges of €18 billion from institutional investors to invest in tech companies and has since become a model many policymakers are seeking to replicate. La French Tech, the government's 'one stop shop for tech startups', serves as a hub - a source of publicity and support - for French startups.
• In Germany, this year the government announced Die Start-up-Strategie der Bundesregierung - a 10-point plan to improve the German startup ecosystem, including a funding allocation of €30bn by 2030. Additionally, the plan mentions facilitating pension fund and insurance company investment in VCs. The government plans to implement new laws by the autumn of 2025.
• In Spain, the Spanish Startup Law has been approved by the Spanish Parliament in November 2022 and is expected to come into force in January 2023. It is closely aligned with the Startup Nations Standards and will bring tax benefits to attract and retain tech talent, be it startup founders, remote workers or digital nomad wishing to work in Spain. It will also facilitate other aspects of company building - e.g. low touch incorporation, stock options taxation, access to finance.
• In Italy, the Italian Startup Act amongst other initiatives have led to a flurry of initiatives to support startup innovation. In fact, this is the country for which we were able to identify the most implemented coverage across all policy topics covered in this analysis.

There is much more to explore - from the UK's expansion of the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS), to Latvia's Welcome Pack and Startup Law, to digital nomad visas across Europe.

Curious? Check out more details here.

This is an incomplete list, compiled to give a flavour of policy initiatives across Europe supporting startups and venture capital. Want to make it more complete? Please share your contribution here.

One barrier in the IPO process is how complicated it is to go public. While still maintaining necessary financial and risk-related rigour, there have been recent policy initiatives attempting to reduce the unnecessary administrative burden on scale-ups. How effective these attempts will be - and whether they become a more popular policy choice across Europe - remains to be seen.

Curious? Check out more details here.

This is an incomplete list, compiled to give a flavour of policy initiatives across Europe supporting startups and venture capital. Want to make it more complete? Please share your contribution here.

Another way to help bring in more angel investors, and amplify existing angels' impact, is via tax breaks. Tax incentives for young tech company investment both raise awareness of this asset class and help new investors with limited funds see it as a viable investment opportunity. A sample of policies that we could find in this category are below.

Curious? Check out more details here.

This is an incomplete list, compiled to give a flavour of policy initiatives across Europe supporting startups and venture capital. Want to make it more complete? Please share your contribution here.

Direct funding initiatives are one form of incentive governments have. . . but they also wield tax incentives as well. To help aid young and growing ventures, governments have instituted tax breaks supporting costs associated with R&D, hiring employees, and just generally locating a business within a country's borders. Below is (likely) a small sampling.

Curious? Check out more details here.

This is an incomplete list, compiled to give a flavour of policy initiatives across Europe supporting startups and venture capital. Want to make it more complete? Please share your contribution here.

In terms of ecosystem-expanding policies, a common government strategy across many different entrepreneurial ecosystems is to amplify private venture capital investments via funding for VCs. This is a benefit for governments that don't want to get involved in direct investments (requiring expertise and infrastructure to wade through and assess manifold ventures), but still want to help spur on outcomes requiring higher funding levels in their local ecosystem. There are many different flavours - a sample is included below.

Curious? Check out more details here.

This is an incomplete list, compiled to give a flavour of policy initiatives across Europe supporting startups and venture capital. Want to make it more complete? Please share your contribution here.

A wide variety of countries in Europe have implemented policies supporting entrepreneurs and tech talent to relocate within their borders - from specific visas for work "of essential interest" to the national economy, to general 'digital nomad' visas, to immigration policies aimed at investors, this is one of the policy areas where we were able to find the most activity.

Curious? Check out more details here.

This is an incomplete list, compiled to give a flavour of policy initiatives across Europe supporting startups and venture capital. Want to make it more complete? Please share your contribution here.

One of the most common ways governments will try to support their local entrepreneurial ecosystems may be the most obvious: money. Young startups need cash to expand and governments across the world have used this tactic to help amplify their ecosystems. These cash injections take manifold forms - to the highly specific on certain areas of interest (SDGs, climate, AI, etc.) all the way to purely general initiatives supporting those starting ventures. Below is surely a small sample of what we could find in our research.

Curious? Check out more details here.

This is an incomplete list, compiled to give a flavour of policy initiatives across Europe supporting startups and venture capital. Want to make it more complete? Please share your contribution here.