Welcome to ‘The Startup State’ - a weekly bulletin from the GEN Policy and Research team highlighting key entrepreneurship announcements, reports, commentary and features from around the world.
News
- The European Investment Fund is launching a new €15bn ($17bn) fund of funds to back 100 growth-stage VCs across the continent - the biggest of its kind (Sifted)
- The United States has appointed Silicon Valley leaders, including Jensen Huang, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, and Marc Andreessen, to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The panel is expected to wield influence over the administration's AI policies (Politico)
- Angola has passed a Startups Law giving a legal definition for technology-driven startups, as part of wider efforts to strengthen the country's digital economy (Startup Researcher)
- The United Kingdom has launched a consultation on draft proposals to make it easier for overseas companies to move their place of incorporation to the country (gov.uk)
- South Korea has launched 'Startup for All', a nationwide initiative designed to make starting a business a realistic option for far more people. The idea builds on the recognition that Korea's current growth model has deepened divides between large and small firms, and between the capital and the rest of the country (MSS)
Comment and analysis
- Canada is losing its entrepreneurs - and barely anyone is talking about it (Charles Lammam, contributor, The Hub)
- When uncertainty becomes structural: Entrepreneurship support organizations as ecosystem infrastructure in a new fiscal reality (Stephen Hunt and Nelson Okwanna, contributors, Next Billion)
- Corporate venture capital's crisis: More capital, less clarity (Maija Palmer, editor, Global Venturing)
- A global snapshot of entrepreneurship trends (Reem Hashad, Frederic Meunier and Laure Le Gall, World Bank)
- The hidden yet promising trend of female entrepreneurs in Somalia (Bahja Ahmed, contributor, D&C)
- A policy gap is threatening the Pentagon's AI innovation pipeline (Morgan Plummer, vice president of policy, Americans for Responsible Innovation)
- When (Namibian) policy moves slowly, innovation suffers (Augustinus Ngombe, executive director, Wezesha Vocational College)
- The Denholm (Australian R&D) report gets the diagnosis right, but real reform is hard and involves pain (Will Schmitt, former senior executive, Investment NSW)
Ecosystem developments
- Tim Rowe, founder and executive chair of Cambridge Innovation Center, has called on Japan to provide greater policy support to achieve its goal of increasing startup funding tenfold (Japan Times)
- Kyrylo Budanov, head of the President's Office, has been appointed as head of the Council for Entrepreneurship Support in Ukraine (Interfax)
- Former National AI Centre head Stela Solar will replace Chris Kirk as CEO of Australian startup hub Stone & Chalk (Startup Daily)
- Serial entrepreneur and investor, Michael Stucky has been appointed as CEO of the Swiss Startup Association (Startup Ticker)
- ccHUB, Nigeria's first innovation centre and technology hub, has launched GATEWAY, a five-year initiative to train 340,000 young Nigerians in digital skills (TechCabal)
Features
- Togo's quiet rise as a startup contender (African Business)
- From early-stage depth to global scaleups: The Finnish tech ecosystem (tech.eu)
- African nation of Cabo Verde and its fintech ecosystem in 2026 (The Fintech Times)
- The startup ecosystem in Costa Rica and its challenges (Contxto)
- 'All hands on deck': (Australian industry) Minister calls for unified tech approach (ACS)
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The opinions expressed in the articles above are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Global Entrepreneurship Network.