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.
News
- NATO allies take further steps to establish NATO Innovation Fund
NATO has announced Dr. Klaus Hommels (founder, Lakestar) as chair, and Dame Fiona Murray (Associate Dean, MIT School of Management) and Dr. Roberto Cingolani (founder, Italian Institute of Technology) as board members of its new, €1bn multi-sovereign venture capital fund. - Hong Kong proposes new regime for listing of specialist technology companies
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange has proposed easing listing rules for companies in next-generation IT, advanced hardware, advanced materials, new energy and environmental protection, and new food and agriculture technologies. - UK visa endorsement fees will now cost founders £2k - down from up to 15x that
The UK government has reduced the number of endorsing bodies for entrepreneur visas from 60 to just three and implemented a fixed £2,000 fee. Previously, endorsing bodies - private incubators, accelerators and community builders required up to £30k or equity in return for endorsement.
Insight
- ONE23 Startup Manifesto
Allied for Startups, SUP46 (the Swedish startup community), Danish Entrepreneurs and other European startup community organizations have co-published a manifesto to coincide with the start of the Swedish presidency of the EU Council. The report highlights five priorities for startups: AI, access to data, cross-border ecosystems, net neutrality and investment in future technologies - Women entrepreneurship in MENA: The cases of Bahrain, Lebanon and Tunisia
The Wilson Center aggregates datasets from various national, regional and global sources to better explain why women entrepreneurship in the MENA region continues to lag behind. While the report presents data on the entire region, it delves into three country case studies to identify why gender gaps in entrepreneurship persist and what has been accomplished thus far that can inform efforts to close this gender gap. - Privacy patchwork problem: Costs, burdens and barriers encountered by startups
Engine has released a report calling for a consistently-enforced, uniform federal privacy framework in the U.S. to create privacy protections for all Americans and certainty for the startups that serve them. - Entrepreneurship policy review - Uganda
UNCTAD reviews the impact thus far of Uganda’s Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Policy (2015-2025), noting several acheivements in accelerating Uganda’s entrepreneurship culture, while highlighting the challenges related to COVID-19 and the need to cater for migrant and refugee entrepreneurs.
Comment
- Depay now, pay later: Why SMEs must not put off investing in innovation and greening (Miriam Koreen, senior counsellor on SMEs and head of the SME and entrepreneurship finance unit, OECD CFE)
- Building a connected Africa: The path to a single digital market and a prosperous future (Baidy Sy, digital development specialist, World Bank)
- How digital public infrastructure supports empowerment, inclusion and resilience (Vyjananti T Desai, Jonathan Marksell, Georgina Marin and Minita Varghese, World Bank)
- Is this Pakistan’s Silicon Valley moment? (Qasim Farooq, Information Officer, PID)
Features
- Sifted: Dark store clampdowns are the newest headache for rapid grocery delivery in Europe
- World Economic Forum: Could regulation technology - or ‘reg-tech’ - avert banking failures? This entrepreneur thinks so
- FT: London’s lead in tech is at risk, warn startups
If you would like to share content for inclusion in future editions of 'The Startup State' weekly bulletin, please email matt@genglobal.org.
Get Updates Delivered Directly to Your Inbox
Subscribe by selecting 'The Startup State' under communications permission in the form below.