EU Commissioner Mariya Gabriel will participate in today’s EU Startup Summit with startup leaders via video-conference. During the Summit, Commissioner Gabriel will be given an up-to-date assessment of the startup and scaleup environments across Europe. She will also receive the group’s plans, which include a list of recommendations covering key areas including education, Pan-European Startup Visa (“Startup Green Card”), talent, diversity, tax incentives, stock options, and public procurement.
The aim of the group is to provide feedback to the European Commission on how it can further support and promote European startup ecosystems and increase employment, innovation and exports across the EU over the next decade and most importantly, to ensure equal innovation opportunities wherever one is based (cities, villages, and remote areas).
Today’s situation
Startups and scaleups are key to Europe's future economy and society. They are essential players to make the ambitions with respect to the European Green Deal and the European Digital Strategy a reality. Startups and scaleups are important in any innovation ecosystem that aims to deliver breakthroughs to the market. They are key in creating new jobs and sustainable European prosperity.
Currently, EU27 boasts more than 80.000 startups of which 51 are unicorns. The investments raised by European startups was 41 billion US dollars in 2020, up from 36,6 billion US dollars in 2019.
It has been reported 2 that during Q1 2021 27 innovative companies got a valuation of more than 1 billion US dollar in Europe, based on their latest funding round. At first glance, this is very positive news. However, a closer look reveals that only 13 of these companies were located in EU27 before the funding round, and that only 7 of them will stay in EU27 after the funding round, which paints a much bleaker picture. In the same period, the US produced 67 new unicorns.
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