Welcome to ‘The Startup State’ - a weekly bulletin from the GEN Policy and Research team highlighting key entrepreneurship news, reports, commentary and features from around the world.
GEN news
- GEN and Startup Genome today launched the inaugural APEXE Nations report at G20 in Brazil. The ‘Aptitudes and Policies for Exponential Entrepreneurship’ report offers a pioneering data-driven framework designed to help countries measure their startup ecosystem potential and effectiveness. The rankings are driven by an innovative set of factors which determine the degree to which a country has translated its potential into exponential entrepreneurship. This pilot report is limited to G20 nations with plans to expand coverage and indicators in future reports.
- Read the summary
- Read the report
- Register for the launch webinar (taking place 26 Nov 1:30pm GMT)
- Global Entrepreneurship Week takes place next week with 40,000 events set to engage over 10 million people in the celebration and promotion of entrepreneurship. How to get involved:
- Last week in Riyadh, GEN and Monsha’at awarded $1 million in cash prizes to winners of the 2024 Entrepreneurship World Cup.
News
- The United States has seen a record 20 million new business applications filed since President Biden and Vice President Harris took office, the most in any single Presidential term in history (The White House)
- Egypt’s prime minister Mostafa Madbouly has announced a target of increasing investments into startups from $500m to $5bn, in recognition of the importance of entrepreneurship, especially given Egypt’s youthful population (Daily News Egypt)
- Tapei has introduced a “Global Pass” program to offer Tapei-based startups taking on global expansion up to 80% subsidies for co-working space rentals abroad (PR Newswire)
- South Korea is launching a “Startup Korea Special Visa”, which minimizes quantitative requirements and allows the government to recommend applicants based on the evaluations of business feasibility and innovation by a private evaluation committee (MSS)
Research and publications
- The risks of founding a startup near big companies
This HBR summary of research by Jim Bessen and Ronja Tottger of Boston University and Felix Poege of Bocconi University finds that while talent-rich communities may be alluring, they can stifle startups ability to scale. - What is the role of government venture capital for innovation-driven entrepreneurship?
This OECD report analyzes government venture capital’s role in OECD member countries and finds that, when in partnership with private investors, GovVC can effectively direct capital to overlooked firms while achieving comparable innovation and exit performance from portfolio companies to those solely funded by private VCs. - Cash or matching grants? Medium-term impacts on small businesses in Burkino Faso
This World Bank research summary examines what could be the first study comparing matching grants with cash grants based on a randomized experiment in a fragile context.
Comment and analysis
- Gulf’s AI strategy is built on more than sand (Karen Kwok, columnist, Reuters)
- Making America Great Again requires putting business and tech innovation first (Robert D Atkinson, president, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation)
- The innovation imperative for the new Administration (Steve Case, co-founder of AOL and chairman of Revolution)
- Ability to nurture entrepreneurs key for growth (Jayant Chaudhary, union minister of state for skill development and entrepreneurship, India)
- Kenya’s Hustler Fund is a flop. Why President Ruto’s plan to loan money to entrepreneurs hasn’t worked (Eric Magale, postdoctoral research fellow, University of Pretoria)
Ecosystem insights
- The origins of the French tech boon - and what’s still to come (Sifted)
- Switzerland stakes its claim as Europe’s hottest tech centre (Forbes)
- 2024 Philippines startup ecosystem map (Start2)
Features
- Bridging the gap between business school research and policymaking (FT)
- AI Minister Clara Chappaz unveils her government roadmap to “make France a major AI power” (Maddyness - written in French)
- What lawmakers should ask the EU’s new tech boss (Politico)
- Silicon Valley is betting an Elon Musk-inspired Donald Trump could unleash a startup boom (Entrepreneur)
GEN Atlas insights
The GEN Atlas is the world’s largest entrepreneurship policy compendium, featuring over 400 case studies from 70 countries. Using these case studies, we publish Country Deep Dives examining the policies underpinning countries’ entrepreneurial success, Policy Deep Dives comparing different countries’ approaches to common policy challenges, and Atlas Spotlights highlighting the best examples of policies under a broad theme. Recent highlights:
- Policy deep dives: Employee share schemes | Startup visas | Youth entrepreneurship | Supporting ethnic minority entrepreneurs
- Country deep dives: South Africa | France | The Netherlands | Australia | Spain
- Atlas spotlights: Finance
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The opinions expressed in the articles above are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Global Entrepreneurship Network.