EUROPEAN
STARTUP MONITOR
2020/2021
In line with the European Commission initiative to improve the economic and regulatory framework for startups and scaleups, European Startup Network analyzed the potential of startups as future drivers of economic growth and job creation within the European Union.
The European Startup Monitor 2019/2020 provided a well-founded database on the emergence, dynamics, and development of startups, and gave insights to help policymakers design strategies that foster the development of the startups.
The now available European Startup Monitor 2020/2021 analyses in greater depth informations on startup founding teams, financing sources, current challenges, and the assessment of the ecosystem environment. In addition, a number of new questions regarding the COVID-19 impact and the EU funding and grants were added.

Highlights:
Founder
& Startup
Metrics
Below you will find some highlights of the analysis included in the report. Download the full report to have a comprehensive picture of the challenges startups face in their different stages of development.
Objectives of the European Startup Monitor 2020
Startups are a critical element for the economic vitality of any country. They also are the pipeline for SMEs and future high-growth firms. Across Europe, startups contribute to make countries economically and socially vibrant by redefining the technological landscape and creating the markets of tomorrow.
It is therefore important to analyse the potential of startups as future drivers of economic growth and job creation within the European Union, and to provide insights to help policy makers design strategies that foster the development of these important actors.
Methodology
The data were collected through an online survey aimed at startup founders, run in cooperation with many practitioner supporters, startup associations and a variety of ecosystem stakeholders. The survey remained open from mid-November 2020 until the 12th of March 2021 and collected 679 responses from 28 EU countries.
Limitations
Some limitations to the study must be taken into account when drawing conclusions from the findings. Firstly, the European Startup Monitor did not have the ambition to have a full coverage of all the startups in Europe, which, needless to say, outsizes the sample by at least one order of magnitude.
The researchers focused on analysing the data per stage of development of the startups. This led to sizable categories and to the ability to make the findings and their comparison significant, with the exception of the steady stage category, which is small in relative terms (1% of the sample). Secondly, the data for Austria have been collected through a dedicated survey, with an approach that was mostly, but not completely, aligned with the main survey. The general similarity between the two surveys allowed to analyse their data jointly, but some differences made it impossible to use the data for Austria for some specific analyses.
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