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
- India will take equity stakes in semiconductor startups under its $13.2bn Semicon 2.0 program, co-investing alongside private VCs at each funding round while planning to exit once companies mature so founders keep control (Firstpost)
- Syria has inaugurated "Tech Town", an innovation hub in Damascus offering co-working space, startup facilities, and AI/cybersecurity/VR labs meant to accelerate the country's digital economy and entrepreneurship ecosystem (SANA)
- Gabon has unveiled Kimba Connect, a national platform designed to link established businesses with local tech startups so companies can source homegrown solutions to operational and commercial challenges (Tech In Africa)
- Costa Rica has seen its official small-business registry nearly double since 2022, growing 97% to more than 36,000 formally registered firms as the government expands training and formalization support (The Tico Times)
- Bangladesh will launch a National Startup and Entrepreneurship Platform, a digital hub connecting founders to funding, training, and mentoring, backed by a $40.6 million Startup Fund (BSS News)
Comment and analysis
- Why government won't say "ecosystem" (that refusal is costing you billions) (Paul O'Brien, author, Startup Economist)
- Why Kenya's revived golden visa matters for venture investors and founders (Adonijah Ndege, journalist, TechCabal)
- A lesson from BLOCK71 for Korea: Startup ecosystems cannot be copy-pasted (Korea Tech Desk)
- Portugal needs more gazelles and less bureaucracy (The Portugal News)
- Azerbaijan looks beyond banks to finance its economic future (Qabil Ashirov, columnist, Azernews)
- Korea is training startup founders, not just funding them (Jonathan Moore, partner, Brinc)
- Ask yourself these three questions if you want to see your ecosystem's future (Techstars)
Features
- Is this the end of the accelerator era in African tech? (Launch Base Africa)
- Young Indonesians fear the future after startup founder jailed (ABC)
- Can Kurdistan follow Israel's lead to become the Middle East's next Start-Up Nation? (The Jerusalem Post)
- Ohio cut red tape. Now its business sector is thriving. (Reason)
- Vietnam seeks more competitive start-ups (Vietnam News)
- Luxembourg's startups are reaching higher (Silicon Luxembourg)
- Why Georgia is becoming Eurasia's startup hub (The Recursive)
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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.