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
- Entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist Mark Cuban will headline the Global Entrepreneurship Congress, which 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)
- IDB Labs is recruiting for several C-Suite positions including CTO, CSO, CFO, CIO and Chief Ecosystem Building Officer (IDB)
- The Tony Blair Institute is recruiting for a Director of the Togo National Innovation Agency (TBI)
- The European Commission has opened applications for the European Capital of Innovation Awards 2026 (EC)
News
- Luxembourg has announced a ten-point plan to bolster startups. It features €300m ($324m) of investment, investor tax credits, a new scaleup program, an employee stock option scheme, and a “talent desk” to help international professionals integrate into the country’s ecosystem (Luxembourg Times)
- Uzbekistan’s President has announced that the central bank, alongside commercial banks, will allocate €50m ($54m) to at least 200 startups in high-potential sectors by the end of 2026 (Kun)
- The United Kingdom has appointed tech entrepreneur and co-author of the Labour Party’s pre-election Startup Review Tom Adeyoola as chair of Innovate UK (gov.uk)
- Nigeria is set to establish a $40m early-stage investment fund, half-funded by the Japanese Government, with the remainder covered by a matching sum from the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (Semafor)
- South Korea has set out criteria for its new “top-tier” visa targeting experts, researchers and entrepreneurs specializing in AI, robotics, semiconductors, biotech and defense-tech. Applicants will need to hold a master’s or doctorate from one of the top 100 universities and have a total of eight years of work experience, including three years at one of the world’s 500 largest companies (Korea JoonAng Daily)
Comment and analysis
- Should NY give tax breaks to startups? Legislature resists Gov. Hochul’s tax-free plan (Jimmy Vielkind, reporter, Gothamist)
- Silver lining for European tech: Swedish startups (Oona Lagercrantz, AI governance fellow, Talos Network)
- From cybernation to AI-nation - Israel must become an AI powerhouse (Dean Leitersdorf and Moshe Shalev, founders, Decart)
- Should UK tech look east or west? (John Thornhill, editorial director, Sifted)
- To close Europe’s defence tech gap, governments must support startups (Dr Robert Brull, founder and CEO, FibreCoat)
- Beyond Silicon Valley: Expanding access to capital across America (US Congress testimony by Steve Case, chairman and CEO, Revolution)
- The role of competition in promoting growth and innovation in the UK (Tech.eu Summit speech by Jessica Lennard, chief strategy and external affairs officer, Competition and Markets Authority)
- How talent mobility is reshaping the entrepreneurial ecosystem (Bernardo Saraiva, co-founder and MD, World Talents)
Features
- Special report: Europe’s leading startup hubs 2025 (FT)
- Five alternative European tech clusters that are leading the way (tech.eu)
- Lessons learned from outside innovators (MIT Sloan Management Review)
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.