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
- NorthGuide hosts its 2025 Global Ecosystem Summit in Toronto, Canada, on October 7. This application-based event will bring together leading ecosystem builders under the theme 'Shift Happens'. All delegates receive a complimentary pass for the Elevate Festival. Learn more
- The Startup Venezuela Summit returns on October 31 to November 1 in Caracas. The movement connects, inspires, and empowers Venezuelan entrepreneurship around the world. Learn more
- The European Institute of Innovation & Technology hosts its EIT Education and Skills Days on October 15-16. For the first time, EIT is bringing together four flagship education initiatives with one shared goal: building an innovative education and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Europe. Learn more
- The Global Entrepreneurship Network and Alibaba.com have joined forces to open applications for CoCreate Pitch, the world's leading product-driven startup competition. Learn more | Apply now | View the digital media toolkit and create co-branded promotional graphics
News
- The United States and the United Kingdom have announced a Technology Prosperity Deal to "usher in the next Golden Age of Innovation". The MOU announced during President Trump's State Visit to the UK establishes areas of cooperation on AI innovation, civil nuclear energy, quantum advantage, and frontier innovation (UK Government)
- Japan is revising guidelines for contracts between venture capitalists and startups. The existing guidelines for inducing IPOs will be revised to make mergers and acquisitions an important option to recover investment. The revised framework will align with European and U.S. methods in an effort to attract foreign investors (MK Korea)
- Vietnam has approved a national business database that will combine existing business registration, tax, import-export, social insurance, credit, and labor databases. The aim is to improve government support, increase transparency, and develop big data to unlock trade and investment (Vietnam News)
Comment and analysis
- Tech entrepreneurs call against the Zucman Tax: 'Let's not break the French entrepreneurial momentum!' (36 leading French entrepreneurs write in l'Opinion challenging a leading economist's proposal to tax theoretical wealth - in French)
- The UK is squandering its AI talent: We risk building the foundations for other countries' successful technologies (Mike Bracken, founding partner, Public Digital and former chief digital and data officer, UK Government)
- Korea's record 2026 startup budget: Can $800m Mother Fund deliver global unicorns? (Zee Cindy, KoreaTechDesk)
- Ukraine is becoming a global defense tech powerhouse (Stephan Veselovsky, CEO, Lviv IT Cluster and IT Arena)
- The entrepreneurial power play: What Canada can learn from Japan's long game (Neil Seeman, contributor, Toronto Star)
- Venture capital is not the answer for women founders - they need funding that fits (Tracey Warren, CEO, Bree Kirkham and COO, F5 Collective)
- Startup India 2.0 must look beyond valuations (Dr. Chitra Saruparia, assistant professor and assistant dean, National Law University, Jodhpur)
Features
- Syria's quest to build its own Silicon Valley (Rest of World)
- Early formation of startup nation (NhanDan, Vietnam)
- Exit pressure: Why Africa's decade-old founder class is stepping aside at scaleups (Launch Base Africa)
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.
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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.