Benchmarking European tech ecosystems in 2022

The UK, Germany, France, Netherlands. These countries consistently come out on top out of European tech ecosystems for the big stats – funding, unicorn creation, and ecosystem value. But these are also among the biggest economies on the continent. So we wanted to take a closer look under the hood of how Europe’s tech nations really compare. How do the notoriously entrepreneurial Baltic States, or Nordic innovators weight up on a per capita basis. Which are Europe’s most entrepreneurial tech ecosystems, pound for pound.

Enterprise Value per capita can be seen as a metric for region maturity, of how much value they generate in relation to their limit of resources. Sweden takes a comfortable lead of over 1.6x EV per capita of the second place  as the country has consolidated itself as a unicorn factory and has led VC investment in impact startups with over 50% of VC funding directed to the segment. We recently published a report on main takeaways from Sweden’s tech ecosystem here.

Top 40 country in Enterprise Value per Capita in Europe in 2022

See top 11- 40 countries in ecosystem value per capita in Europe in 2022

Report - European VC pulse check – H1 2022

The biggest increase in ranking since last year has been by Estonia which jumped 5 places, an ecosystem that had been flying under the radar until recently but has been investing heavily and creating success cases such as Wise, Bolt and Glia.

See top 11- 40 countries in VC Funding per capita in Europe in 2022

VC funding per capita shows where investors are seeing potential for future growth. Estonia is currently leading funding per capita with 2022 already becoming a record breaking year of over $1B in VC funding YTD in the country, mainly driven by large players such as Bolt. A spotlight on Croatia is also necessary, the country climbed 11 places since last year, primarily propped up by electric car manufacturing company Rimac. Out of the larger ecosystems, France led the way and went up 4 places while other mature ecosystems such as The Netherlands, Sweden and Germany had a harder time.

For this analysis we consider startups companies designed to grow fast and generally VC-backable while combined national valuations are based on market capitalization and latest transaction values. VC investment figures exclude debt or other non-equity funding, lending capital, grants and ICOs.

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Dealroom regularly publishes reports on select ecosystems, we have covered this topic more extensively on the Europe H1 Update but frequently dive into other ecosystems like New Palo Alto, Flanders and more!