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
- Romania has launched a €100m ($116m) 'Diaspora Invests at Home' program to support Romanians living abroad who want to start businesses and invest in Romania. Newly established companies majority-owned by Romanian citizens residing abroad will be eligible for grants of up to €200k ($233k) to support investment loans (Romania Insider)
- Seoul, South Korea is throwing open its parks, bridges, hospitals and public squares to startups, betting that the city itself can become a giant testbed for the next generation of AI, robotics and smart infrastructure technologies (Korea Times)
- Finland has drafted a radical simplification of its startup residence permit process. At present, applicants must secure an 'innovation potential' statement from Business Finland before lodging an application. Nearly half of all statements issued since 2021 were negative, generating workload without delivering new jobs. By merging the steps, the government hopes to deter speculative filings and free resources for genuine founders (VisaHQ)
- Benin has appointed AI expert Mahuna Akplogan as minister of digital transformation and innovation. Akplogan previously co-founded a fintech firm and iSHEERO, an association bringing together data science and AI experts (ecofin agency)
Comment and analysis
- Does corporate venture capital make startups more innovative? What new OECD data reveal (OECD)
- A hidden policy crisis behind America's startup decline (Paul O'Brien, author, Startup Economist)
- Startup ecosystems must measure conversion, not just activity (Zee Cindy, Korea Tech Desk)
- The startup ecosystem in Central America is expanding rapidly (Por Israel Panteleon, Contxto)
- The missing scaffold: Why social entrepreneurs need better thinking, not just better plans (Erwin Chan, contributor, E27)
- Overlooked entrepreneurship: The gap in disability policy (Davide Rizzo, Startupbusiness)
- Founders, you're losing the room with the current responses to capital gains tax changes (Deepak Singh, contributor, Startup Daily)
- Why most Southeast Asian founders are optimising for the wrong market (Chris Chen, founder, Future 500)
- The role of university venture funds in spinout success (Kim Moore, editor, Global University Venturing)
Features
- Torn by war, Israelis and Palestinians tie their fortunes together (KVPR)
- The EU's Big Tech law was meant to move fast. It hasn't (Politico)
- Tunisia advances women's entrepreneurship through a decade of coordinated action (ILO)
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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.