The first-ever European Startup and Scaleup Scoreboard (ESSS), published by the European Commission showcases a clear trend – countries that implement startup-friendly policies tend to achieve better innovation and business outcomes. Since 2020, 20 of the 27 EU Member States have improved their performance, demonstrating the positive impact of targeted support measures.
The scoreboard ranks countries’ performance in several areas, including regulation, access to finance, talent, infrastructure, market expansion and impact. Based on 36 indicators, it provides a deep-dive into the framework conditions that help companies get started and grow. Consequently, it points towards both the successes and the challenges that each nation faces, helping inform future policy actions.
Whilst the EU is performing highly in the number of startups from 2024 to 2025 (501.9 per million population) it appears to be performing poorly on the number of scaleups (8.1 per million population). This statistic underscores a fundamental problem: the EU does not have a problem creating a company, but there real problem in scaling it up. However, this startup-to-scaleup gap is not evenly distributed across Europe. Front-runner countries – Estonia, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, and Denmark – consistently outperform the EU average on scaling metrics, suggesting that where the right policy conditions are in place, the transition is achievable. In fact, the European Commission has identified scale-up as a priority challenge implementing a €5 billion Scaleup Europe Fund, designed to support the most innovative deep tech scaleups.
Source:
