Our data show that Spain (as most of the Southern and Eastern countries) suffers a chronic situation of relative undercapitalization compared to the other European regions. Unfortunately, there is only medicine to treat such disease: pour more capital. Move the investment bar from hundreds of millions to billions.

Tech Scal [...]

"Launched [...]

在科技创业领域，中国是一条苏醒的巨龙。 2014年以来，中国科技创业领域的投资增长迅猛。通过不断向科技创 业生态系统注入大量资金，中国已成功将欧洲甩在身后，尽管与美国 尚有一段距离。 由此产生的最终结果是，中国培育出了更大规模的科技公司，并不断 缩小与美国的差距。中国有近一万家高成长创业公司，其中528家公 司的融资规模占中国科技创业生态系统融资总额的71%。 这些公司中有38家科技巨头——我们称之为“超大型创业公司”。它们 的融资规模占中国科技创业生态系统融资总额的38%。这一数字远远 超过欧洲(20%)和美国(23%)。 北京、上海、深圳是中国是三大科技中心城市，中国64%的高成长创 业公司分布在这三座城市。 香港则在更大程度上是一座金融中心。香港证券交易所是全球第三大 高科技企业融资平台，仅次于纽约证券交易所和纳斯达克。 百度、阿里巴巴、腾讯、京东等互联网巨头以及它们最主要的竞争者 拥有丰富的资金和发展资源。这些企业旗下的创业投资机构是中国风 险投资领域转型的主要力量。 中国第一轮科技创业投资推动了旅游、手机、互联网和电子商务领域 的发展。人工智能、科学与工程软件、教育技术则是中国当前和未来 发展的引导力量。

Italy moves too slow and it needs to accelerate significantly. This was the main diagnosis emerging from our last year report. One year later, the scenario has not changed. Italy still ranks 11th in the European Scaleup Europe ranking. And the gap from the top has become even wider. Moving slow in the world of technology equates at not moving at all. And, if you are late, it is difficult to catch up with the opponents that are ahead of you if you don’t start running.

Finland is home of 219 scaleups, about 4% of the total amount that we tracked in Europe. They cumulatively raised $1.9B in funding since inception, which is 2.3% of the total capital raised by European scaleups to date. The Finnish ecosystem is in the ninth position of the European Scaleup Country Index, between the Netherlands and Denmark. If absolute numbers suggest that Finland is really far from UK, Germany, France, and Sweden, the conversation changes in relative terms. Starting this year we introduced two indicators to better understand the efficiency of a scaleup economy as it relates to the size of the country in question.

In 2017, more than 1,200 scaleups were born in Europe and $22B of new capital was invested into scaleups. We’ve measured good progress, but there is still a lot of work ahead of us.

34% of European scaleups come from the UK and 35% (30 out of 86) of the European scalers (large tech companies raising over $100M) live across the Channel. Our research confirms that, to date, the UK has been the epicentre of Scaleup Europe.

“What’s wrong in Italy? It just moves too slow.”That was the blunt answer of Augusto Marietti during an interview a few years ago. Originally from Rome, Augusto is the CEO and co-founder of Kong (formerly known as Mashape), who just closed a $18 million round led by Andreessen Horowitz.

There has been no shortage of unicorns or any verticals left untouched by startups coming out of Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Iceland.

Europe is home to approximately 4,200 fast growing, high-tech companies that we refer to as “scaleups”. This distinction serves to separate this group from startups, i.e. to draw a line between early stage initiatives and real companies that are producing revenue and employment. If the count is restricted to only countries who are current members of the European Union, the number of scaleups goes down to 3,950 and the capital raised to $56B.

This SEP Monitor is a follow up to “Portugal Rising”, a report we published at the end of 2015, it gives an updated view of the ecosystem a year and a half down the line, and we are happy to say the positive momentum has continued for Portugal. The scaleup scene in Portugal is extremely promising and gives hope to Southern Europe lagging scale-up ecosystems.

The European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) says Finland is the best place for companies to find risk capital. Our recent research confirms that evidence. In Finland, we tracked 126 scaleups able to raise cumulatively $1B total in financing.

“Norway has been a bit of an underdog in the Scandiwegian startup scene for a few years. But in just a few short years has gone from been a pretty bleak affair to being a real – if nascent – startup ecosystem”. This is what Haje Jan Kamps wrote on TechCrunch last June1.

Denmark seems to have cemented its position at or near the top of every global quality-of-life survey. Take a look around, and it’s not hard to see why. Our recent research confirms that the Nordic countries are without any doubts an innovation powerhouse in Europe.

The problem we have in Europe is, as indicated in the Startup Manifesto, that “Continental Europe currently does not create new business destined for growth as well as other parts of the world, Silicon Valley in particular”. High Tech giants do not live in Europe and, even when born here, they grow elsewhere.

Our recent research confirms that the Nordic countries are without a doubt an innovation powerhouse in Europe. In the Nordic region (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden), 430 scaleups have been able to cumulatively secure over $6.5B in investments. That places the Nordics at a similar level of investment as Germany.

Rising from the late-2000s financial crisis, Portugal is rapidly emerging on the European startup map. This is no secret: we were in Lisbon in June for our SEP Matching Event and we found a very vibrant entrepreneurial community, and it’s therefore no surprise that the Web Summit will be held there from 2016.

The problem we have in Europe is, as indicated in the Startup Manifesto, that “Continental Europe currently does not create new business destined for growth as well as other parts of the world, Silicon Valley in particular”. High Tech giants do not live in Europe and, even when born here, they grow elsewhere.