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 community news
- Global Entrepreneurship Congress returns to the U.S. for the first time in 15 years this summer. Join thousands of founders, investors, ecosystem builders and policymakers from 200 countries in Indianapolis, June 2-5 (GEN)
News
- China will set up a national venture capital guidance fund to mobilize 1 trillion yuan ($138bn) to invest in “hard technology” (Reuters)
- Enterprise Ireland has set a target of supporting 1,000 startups over the next five years, boosting exports from €34 to €50bn and supporting the creation of 40,000 new jobs. The Irish Angel Investor Relief also commenced this week, offering capital gain tax relief on investment in startups (Silicon Republic)
- South Korea has implemented changes to allow failed business owners to get new businesses recognized as a startup and participate in government startup support programs (Chosun)
- Kazakhstan will spend $3.4bn in 2025 to support 30,000 SMEs (Astana Times)
Research and publications
- Guide for academic entrepreneurs in India
This Royal Academy of Engineering guide offers independent, actionable advice to support academics looking to commercialize their research. - Female innovation index
This Female Foundry report is Europe’s largest analysis of the funnel of innovation and funding driven by female entrepreneurs. Tech.eu summary - Founder personality and scaling decisions in entrepreneurial firms
This ZEW paper investigates the impact of CEO personality on scaling activities in young firms. - Communicating the societal value of the entrepreneurial university: Evidence from South Korea
This Robyn Klingler-Vidra (KCL), Adam William Chalmers (University of Edinburgh) and Ramon Pacheco Pardo (KCL) paper examines how universities communicate their entrepreneurial efforts, focusing on South Korea’s top ten universities.
Comment and analysis
- Portugal’s entrepreneurial revolution: Why startups and innovation thrive (and what needs to change) (Paul O’Brien, writer, Startup Economist)
- France just killed its employee stock ownership plan program (Lucas Bedout, founder, Hyperline)
- “If you build it, they will come”: Stimulating innovation with regulatory sandboxes (Sarah Mostowich, head of innovation, NorthGuide)
- A strategic bridge between Africa and Europe: Tunisia’s role in the innovation ecosystem (Alberto Onetti, chairman, Mind the Bridge)
- Can special economic zones spur regional attractiveness? (Michael Flood, Giovanni Pagano and Ewa Bialoglowska, OECD)
- From fast follower to innovation leader: Restructuring South Korea’s technology revolution (Sejin Kim, tech policy analyst, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation)
- What <Malaysian State> Sabah can learn from Brunei’s startup ecosystem (Faezrah Rizalman, fellow in digital ecosystems, Nadi Institute for the Future)
- How to make ESOs play nice: Follow the money (Chris Heivly, managing director, Build the Fort and startup community EIR, Techstars)
- How Japan is championing a regional startup economy (Naoko Tochibayashi and Mizuho Ota, World Economic Forum)
- British tech gamble: Can it lead by thinking fast? (Clara Riedenstein, Center for European Policy Analysis and Maurice Hirt, University of Oxford)
Features
- From classrooms to communities: INSEAD’s story of impact entrepreneurship (UN)
- From scenic city to tech powerhouse: How Hangzhou became China’s Silicon Valley (ThinkChina)
- Foreign entrepreneurs find life in Japan tangled in red tape (Bloomberg)
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.