The ten best European 'hubs' to host startups

The Catalan capital continues to occupy the top positions in many international rankings on startups and innovation. The Startup Heatmap Europe report, published by the company DEEP Ecosystems, has once again placed the city as one of the three best hubs to host emerging companies. It occupies the third position for the fourth consecutive year, tied with Amsterdam and behind Berlin and London.

More than 17% of tech company founders in Europe chose Barcelona to locate their  startup or tech company in 2020, a proportion similar to Amsterdam. They also rank significantly above the cities that follow them: Munich, Lisbon, Paris (10%), Zurich, Tallinn (9%), and Stockholm (6%).

This good result is largely due to the fact that the city has a community of entrepreneurs where 65% are foreigners, placing it in fourth position compared to other European capitals. Only Zurich (76%), London (72%), and Berlin (67%) surpass it. In Amsterdam, its competitor in the overall ranking, the proportion falls to 53%. Likewise, more than 32% of startup founders in Barcelona are experts in programming and coding, and there are 77,000 digital professionals, of whom 31% are from outside the city, mainly from Madrid and Paris.

Being one of the most dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystems, with almost 2,000 startups, Barcelona's relevance is also evident in the presence of seven international unicorns, which have opened offices in the city, such as the neobank N26. The Catalan capital is also the birthplace of three unicorns: Glovo, Letgo, and eDreams.

"Despite the global economic situation, Barcelona continues to consistently appear in rankings and classifications as a city for startups and technological talent, and this is the result of years of work and also a current priority of this municipal government," explains the Deputy Mayor for Economy, Labor, Competitiveness, and Finance, Jaume Collboni. Initiatives such as the Barcelona Activa IT Academy, which will train 3,000 programmers in the next five years; the public-private alliance Barcelona Digital Talent with the Mobile World Capital Foundation to promote technological talent; or the transformation of the Correos building on Vía Laietana into a new technological innovation hub in the city center, reinforce this, Collboni emphasizes.

The study Startup Heatmap Europe is based on surveys conducted with more than a thousand startup founders and actors in the entrepreneurial community. It also analyzes and monitors social networks and the traceability of information on investments in this market.

Barcelona beats Paris, Berlin, and London in deep tech startups

Another data point collected in the report indicates that the city beats Paris, Berlin, and London in the proportion of deep tech startups relative to the entire ecosystem, with 296 out of a total of 2,248 startups. Thus, this type of company represents 13.20%. This proportion is above the French capital (9.3%), the German capital (9%), and the British capital (7.5%).

The deep tech sector offers technological solutions in the scientific or engineering field. These types of startups require more research and development, as well as a higher capital investment. However, they also have less market risk, as it is a high-value product that is very difficult to replicate.