The Wall Street Journal recently released details of the most entrepreneurial countries in Europe, with Ireland coming out on top per capita. Interestingly, the northern most countries had the highest results with Sweden, UK, Finland and Norway following behind Ireland.
Ireland attracted four times as much venture-capital funding per capita as the European average and a staggering 650 times as much per capita as bottom-ranked Bulgaria. Sweden attracted 3.7 times the European average.
Despite Ireland’s battering during the financial crisis, the country’s tech startups fared relatively well. Of Ireland’s 311 VC-backed deals since 2003, 131, or 42%, came in 2009 or later, VentureSource says. By contrast, the U.K. closed 1,441 such deals, or just 34% of its 10-year total of 4,208, in the postcrisis period. And across Europe as a whole, the past five years account for 39% of the total for the decade.