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)
- Startup Genome and GEN will unveil the Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2025 at Vivatech Paris on June 12. Initial insights reveal that for the first time in five years, the total value of global startup ecosystems has experienced a sharp decline. Read more and register to receive the report upon launch
News
- The United Kingdom is starting to verify the identity of company directors and shareholders to stamp out fraud and boost transparency (gov.uk)
- Germany has pledged to launch a €10bn ($11.4bn) “Germany Fund” targeted at medium-sized enterprises and scaleups. The fund, as set out in the coalition agreement between the governing parties, will aim to unleash a wave of private investment, taking the value of the fund to €100bn (GTAI)
- India now has over 73,000 startups with a woman director, according to the Ministry of Commerce & Industry (MSN)
Research and publications
- An IT policy playbook for Canada
This Information Technology and Innovation Foundation report lays out an agenda to address what Canada must fix, build, and scale to compete through technology. - The Victoria startup growth report
This LaunchVic and Dealroom report highlights that the Australian State of Victoria is home to 3,500 startups valued at AUD $132bn (USD $85bn), which have created 63,900 jobs since 2004. - Fostering entrepreneurship and SMEs to support economic diversification in Oman
This IMF report highlights the critical role of SMEs in supporting Oman's diversification and job creation goals under Vision 2040, while identifying persistent obstacles including access to finance, regulatory bottlenecks, and a risk-averse entrepreneurial environment. It recommends building on recent reforms by tailoring insolvency frameworks to SMEs, expanding private-sector-driven credit guarantees, and enhancing SME integration into special economic zones to unlock their full potential.
Comment and analysis
- From Doing Business to B-READY: World Bank's new rankings represent a rebrand, not a revamp (Fernanda G Nicola and Dhaisy Paredes Guzman, America University)
- Founders and policymakers need us at the table - before they decide the future for us (Paul O'Brien, publisher, Startup Economist)
- Re-engineering the startup visa: Canada's economic challenges require more global entrepreneurs and investors (Saeed Zeinali, founder, NextStars and Rick Spence, advisor, NextStars)
- India's got deep tech talent: The next step is entrepreneurship (Vivek Wadhwa, CEO, Vionix Biosciences)
- Canada is lagging in innovation, and that's a problem for funding the programs we care about (Andrew Maxwell, Bergeron Chair in Technology Entrepreneurship, York University Canada)
- 'Female entrepreneurship': Misuse of language or deep-down stereotype? (Sophie Vannier, president, La Ruche - in French)
- Innovation districts: What makes them tick, from Detroit to Diriyah (Andrew Collinge and Katie Adnams, Jacobs)
- Burying the Brussels effect? AI Act inspires few copycats (Anda Bologa, senior researcher, Center for European Policy Analysis)
- From incarceration to incorporation: The economic case for second chances (Natalie Madeira Cofield, Forbes)
Features
- Africa forges own AI path at Kigali summit (African Business)
- The world could learn a thing or two from Newfoundland's tech scene (The Logic)
- Finland's bid to win Europe's startup crown (BBC)
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.