EU-Startups.com, an online publication focussing on startups in Europe, has named the Estonian capital, Tallinn, the 12th biggest startup hub in Europe.
The website says it has published an annual ranking of Europe’s biggest startup hubs since 2011, and in the rankings of 2020, Tallinn is listed on the 12th spot.
“And here comes the second big surprise of this year’s startup ecosystem ranking. While in previous years Tallinn wasn’t even part of the TOP 15, this year, the capital of Estonia turned out to be the 12th biggest startup hub in Europe. One of the reasons for this success are probably innovative governmental initiatives like e-residency, which enables digital entrepreneurs to start and manage an EU-based company online,” the website says of Tallinn.
As the website calls Tallinn’s appearance in the top “the second big surprise”, it may be worthwhile to look at the “first big surprise”, too. This turn out to be Munich, Germany. The surprising element, according to the website, is the fact that in 2016, the city ranked 12th, in 2017 11th, and in 2018 10th; in 2020, it had made a big jump and is now the sixth largest startup hub in Europe.
The top 15 biggest startup hubs in Europe, according to EU-Startups.com, are:
- London, UK
- Berlin, Germany
- Paris, France
- Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Barcelona, Spain
- Munich, Germany
- Madrid, Spain
- Stockholm, Sweden
- Dublin, Ireland
- Milan, Italy
- Copenhagen, Denmark
- Tallinn, Estonia
- Zurich, Switzerland
- Helsinki, Finland
- Hamburg, Germany
The rankings, according to the website, are based on three metrics:
“A) As the very first step we’ve identified the TOP 150 cities in relation to this year’s visits on EU-Startups.com – and the associated number of unique visitors (Google Analytics);
“B) Then, we’ve been looking at the number of startups that were founded/registered in each of these European cities on CrunchBase and on Dealroom within the past three years;
“C) Finally, we had a close look at the funding activity we tracked for those hubs within the past 12 months.”
Afterwards, the website gave each of these factors specific weightings to get the right ratio – the same algorithm as in past years. “The least influential factor, which we gave the smallest weighting, was obviously the number of unique EU-Startups visitors per city, since this metric is also influenced by our editorial work.”
EU-Startups.com is an online publication with a focus on startups in Europe, founded in October of 2010. It writes about internet and tech startups out of Europe.
Cover: Telliskivi Creative City and Tallinn Old Town. Photo by Kaupa Kalda.
