In terms of deals over the past five years, artificial intelligence and big data was the largest VC-funded startup industry in 2022, accounting for close to 30 percent of the global deals. Meanwhile, fintech accounted for 16 percent of the deals, with life sciences and health care behind with 12 percent. Blue economy and digital media media were the smallest industries with only one percent each. However, the blue economy saw its funding deals almost doubling over the past five years.

Between 2018 and 2022, the advanced manufacturing and robotics industry saw the highest increase in funding, rising by nearly 170 percent. Cybersecurity saw the second highest increase at 135 percent, followed by the cleantech industry. On the other hand, funding in edtech and adtech dropped by 44 and 15 percent respectively.

As of April 2024, over 127 thousand startups had been officially recognized by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). India’s startup economy has been growing since 2016 with businesses mushrooming rapidly across the country. To support and sustain its growth, the Indian government launched the Startup India initiative. As of February 2023, a total of 92,683 startups had been officially recognized by DPIIT.

Business environment in India

India’s economy comprises of a vast number of businesses that are predominantly micro enterprises, with more than half of them based in rural areas. The Indian government defines a startup as an entity less than ten years old with an annual turnover under one billion Indian rupees and headquartered in India. Owing to a host of funding deals and investment schemes, startups in India have spread across several key sectors primarily those of technology and ecommerce.

Leading startup sectors and unicorns

E-commerce, enterprise tech, and fintech remained the top-performing sectors in 2023. However, all these sectors saw a significant drop in funding compared to the previous year. The bright spot in the year was deeptech which received increased investor interest with more funding deals than the preceding year.

The United States was by far the best country for startups in 2024, according to data provided by StartupBlink. With a total score of 215, the U.S. had almost more than four times as many points as the second ranked United Kingdom, with a score of 55.99. Israel followed in third.

The share of male founders of German startups has been mostly around 81 percent, peaking in 2014 at 89 percent. The highest percentage of female founders, 20.7 percent, was recorded in 2023. The statistic shows the difference between the share of men and women who founded startups in Germany since 2013.

The chart shows the results of a survey conducted in 2023 among founders and executives of start-ups in Germany to assess the start-up ecosystem. Around 41 percent of respondents rated the opportunities for cooperation with established companies as very good or good. The DSM defines the term “startup” as follows:

Startups are less than 10 years old Startups have planned employee and/or sales growth and/or are (highly) innovative with their products/services, their business model and/or their technologies

According to the DSM, a company is a startup if the first condition mentioned above is met and at least one of the other two conditions is also met.

The funding value of the startup market in Georgia saw a decrease over the past year and reached over seven million U.S. dollars in 2023. Over the observed period, the figure peaked in 2022.

According to data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, the start-up rate in the United States was 10.7 percent in 2020. In the United Kingdom the start-up rate amounted to 5.2 percent in the same year.

In 2024, almost 49 percent of people received state subsidies to finance their startup in Germany. Around 32 percent of respondents received business angel capital. This data shows how startup founders in Germany financed their company.

In 2024, around 4,694 startups resided in Hong Kong's co-working spaces and accelerators. This was an increase of ten percent compared to the previous year.

The costliest startup failure of all time was Quibi Holdings, which was shut down a mere six months after launching its online streaming service. Its total disclosed funding was 1.75 billion U.S. dollars. The second costliest startup failure of all time was the Hong Kong sports streaming arm of Chinese conglomerate LeEco, LeSports. Its total disclosed funding was 1.7 billion U.S. dollars. It was shut down due to overdue rent and 30 subscription-related complaints against the company, amid other problems.

Around 28.3 percent of German startups were in the information and communication technology industry. The source defines startups as being younger than ten years, highly innovative in terms of technology and/ or their business model, aiming for significant growth in revenue and employee numbers. The start-up scene German states varied in their startup density. Based on recent data, Berlin had the highest number of startups on its territory, followed by North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria. The most money was invested in software and analytics, at over 3.2 billion euros. Recently, investment volume in German startups saw a drastic increase but 2022 saw a decrease compared to the previous year. While information and communication technology was booming as far as startups were concerned, fintech is another area that has seen success in Germany. Female entrepeneurs Unfortunately, Germany did not fare well when looking at male and female entrepreneur numbers. In fact, European countries generally disappointed. Germany had a 7.1 percent rate of female entrepreneurship, followed by Poland with 1.6 percent.

From 2013 to 2023, the number of startups in Brazil has increased year after year. In 2023, there will be approximately 13,400 registered startups in Brazil. This number has grown by 244 percent compared to 2013, when the number of Brazilian startups was less than 4,000.

According to the survey carried out among start-up owners, the main reasons why their businesses did not work out was a lack of financing, with nearly half percent of the start-ups giving this as the main reason for their business failure. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic played a role in one third of business failures. There is rarely one reason behind a company going bankrupt, it is rather a mixture of several issues, as reflected in the many reasons stated by the respondents.

As of 2024, Israel had 9000 tech startups, which was the highest in the entire MENA region. The United Arab Emirates had the second highest with roughly, 5600 tech startups. Saudi Arabia had the second highest level of tech startups amongst Gulf Cooperation Council countries at 1600.

Funding for artificial intelligence (AI) focused on startups dwindled significantly in the United States at the beginning of 2022, in line with global trends. The expenditure on AI and technology had been on a steady growth trend through 2020 into late 2021. It is most likely that the economic insecurity surrounding the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting chaos in energy markets had caused investors to turn their money towards more basic businesses that would be considered more reliable. Conversely, the 1st quarter of 2023 saw a stratospheric rise in funding, mainly due to the massive popularity of generative AI following OpenAI's release of ChatGPT 3.5 in late 2022.

In 2024, over 39 percent of German startup founders fell into the 25 to 34 age category. This was also the age bracket with the largest share of startup founders. 33.6 percent of founders were between 35 and 44 years old. The DSM defines the term “startup” as follows:

Startups are less than 10 years old Startups have planned employee and/or sales growth and/or are (highly) innovative with their products/services, their business model and/or their technologies

According to the DSM, a company is a startup if the first condition mentioned above is met and at least one of the other two conditions is also met

The share of venture capital (VC) investment allocated in e-commerce startups has never been so low as in 2023. Data showing venture capital investment over the decade 2013 to 2023 show that marketplace and e-commerce startups accounted for just 13 percent of total VC investment worldwide. In 2023, SaaS startups had the biggest share of the pie, with 47 percent of investment.

In 2024, many of the best cities for startups in Latin America and the Caribbean were located in Brazil. Specifically, this Portuguese-speaking country had 4 of the top 10 cities for startups in the region. São Paulo topped the list, with a total score of 36.65 points. Another two cities of the list were located in Mexico, Mexico City and Monterrey.

A total of 154 funding deals for startups were closed in the Middle East in the first half of 2023. The total value of start-up funding in the Middle East was 770 million U.S. dollars.

Investors 

75 percent of Middle East and North African startups received funding from regional investors. Only a quarter of MENA startups received funding from international investors. In contrast to the neighboring startup hub Israel, where more than half of the investment into startups was done by foreign investors.

Exit deals  

The exit strategies for startups mean that after the initial funding and development startup, the owners can either sell the startup to an investor (acquisition); go for an initial public offering (IPO); enter into a merger and acquisition deal; or continue operating without giving up ownership. As of 2019 there were 27 exit deals for startups in the Middle East and North Africa. By comparison, Israel, one of the world’s leading start-up hubs, recorded 138 exit deals for startups in the first half of 2019 alone.