European Tech passes the stress test

The State of European Tech report is a fantastic project. It showcases how the technology industry is essential for the future of Europe. Even more importantly, it shows how overlooked European tech is and that, often, the tech industry only prospers in the USA. More (regulatory) work is needed in Europe to unlock the potential. Kudos to Atomico for the work they are putting into this project.

We do not intend to summarise the report, and we encourage you to head over to https://stateofeuropeantech.com/ and read it yourself.

Slovenia and Croatia are barely mentioned.

Nlaw operates from London, Palo Alto (pst, still a secret, haha 😎), Ljubljana and Zagreb offices. The USA and England get much attention, but Slovenia and Croatia do not. So, we looked into what the report says about these two jurisdictions. Very little is the answer.

Slovenia is ranked 27th in capital invested, outpacing Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine and BiH. Croatia did not make it to the list. Adjusted for size, Slovenia features 0.5 unicorns per 1M citizens, the same as Croatia, both lagging behind many other smaller countries, such as Estonia with 4.5, Malta with 2, Luxembourg with 1.6, Denmark with 1.4, Cyprus with 1.1, and Lithuania with 0.7.

There are no other relevant mentions of both countries in the report. Slovenia and Croatia enjoyed a lot more spotlight in the last year's report, and their numbers were impressive. To refresh your memory, below is a link to our commentary on the previous edition of the State of European Tech Report.

Slovenian and Croatian entrepreneurs are more successful than it looks.

I can't hide my disappointment after reading this report. I believe Slovenia's and Croatia's poor performance is due to a lack of complete and relevant data in Dealroom databases. We know there were more investments, more activity and more relevant data to report. We should not blame Dealroom but rather both countries for their ignorance of the sector and lack of proper statistical data. Luckily, Silicon Gardens Fund stepped in similarly to Atomico on the European Level and covered the Adriatic region with their excellent State of AdTech Report. The latter helps us reach two relevant findings:

• there are more tech investments and growth in the region than evident from the State of European Tech Report,
• due to a hostile regulatory environment in both countries, all successful projects incorporate and keep their HQ in the USA or the UK.

Therefore, if you are interested in the Adriatic region, we recommend reading the State of European and State of Adria Tech reports jointly.