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 EU has invested €108m ($125m) through the Boost Africa initiative to support early-stage African entrepreneurs through venture funds and technical assistance, leveraging an additional €400m ($464m) and targeting up to 15,000 jobs. (Tribune Online)
- Thailand has submitted a draft Startup Act to Cabinet that amends the Civil and Commercial Code to permit convertible bonds, treasury stock and debt-to-equity conversion, and makes the National Innovation Agency a one-stop certification body. Certified startups receive benefits for five years, extendable to ten for deep tech. (InfoQuest)
- South Korea will launch the cross-ministry "Old Downtown RE:CORE Project," converting vacant provincial shops and idle public buildings into shared offices, art studios and startup incubators, with rent subsidies and grants for young founders. One or two sites per region outside the capital area launch fully in 2027, with up to ₩36.5 billion ($27m) per zone. (Chosun Biz)
- Uzbekistan has launched Swedish-backed start-up grants to draw labour migrants home, offering returnees who worked abroad in 2025 or 2026 around $5,000 to launch or expand a small business, subject to a business plan approved by the Migration Agency and IOM. (Eurasianet)
- New South Wales, Australia will establish an AUD $150 million (USD $107m) science and innovation fund from FY2028 to co-invest with universities in research commercialisation and spinouts. However, the commitment is contingent on the Labor government being re-elected in March 2027. (Startup Daily)
- Ghana will target 10,000 young people and businesses a year through the Adwumawura programme, which provides entrepreneurship training, business development support and access to funding, alongside the National Apprenticeship and One Million Coders programmes. (GhanaWeb)
Comment and analysis
How to measure an innovation economy: South Korea (Alberto Onetti, chairman, Mind the Bridge)
Matt Clifford joining Anthropic makes a joke of the UK's Sovereign AI Strategy (Tom Darling, founder and executive director, The New Contract)
India funds its startups. Why won't it buy from them? (Shradha Sharma, founder and CEO, YourStory, with Prem Manukonda)
Treasurer Jim Chalmers just dropped new draft laws on CGT for startups and there's some good news (Simon Thomsen, editor, Startup Daily)
A global startup ecosystem is built by people, not programs: Korea is entering that test (Chloe Kim, writer, KoreaTechDesk)
Scale doesn't belong (only) to government (Aleem Walji, founding CEO, 5in5 Impact Alliance)
Taiwan's startup talent problem is a matching problem, not a shortage (Evan Chen, Founder, EZStartup)
What's trending in startup ecosystems (Paul O'Brien, author, Startup Economist)
Two statutes older than the internet are setting startup policy (Hussain M Elius, co-founder, Pathao)
The rise of the machines: how AI is turning corporate venture capital upside down (Bill Taranto, president, MSD Global Health Innovation Fund)
Features and ecosystem insights
This city is one of the world's most important AI hubs. It's not where you'd expect (CNN)
- How Emannuel Macron brought France’s AI darling to the world stage (Politico Europe)
How San Antonio is quietly rewriting the Texas tech industry playbook (San Antonio Express-News)
Born in Vietnam, incorporated abroad: The regulatory dilemma facing tech startups (Tuoi Tre News)
Corporate venture capital develops in Japan (The Japan Times)
Syria builds SME ecosystem to boost entrepreneurship, attract international partners (SANA)
Virgin StartUp: "It's time to 'fix the front door' to entrepreneurship" (Virgin)
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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.