About Startup Estonia

What is Startup Estonia?


Startup Estonia is a governmental initiative aimed 

to create more success stories of startup companies in Estonia by developing three building blocks: availability of human resources and capital, open and connected community and services, and transparent and straightforward regulative infrastructure.

 For that, we are working on making Estonia one of the world's best places for startups, partnering with and uniting the best of startups, incubators, accelerators, and private and public sectors. 

What exactly does Startup Estonia do?

Today, Startup Estonia divides its activities into 4 categories:

  • Strengthening the Estonian startup ecosystem – uniting and building the community through different events and activities, creating and executing unified marketing and branding strategies, assisting regional development and science-based decision-making;
  • Co-organizing impactful startup events with the community, advocating diversity in age, gender, culture, and background;
  • Working on educating the local investors and attracting foreign investors to Estonia, helping available resources and vital know-how to reach startups and the community;
  • Working on eliminating regulative issues and barriers that complicate operating a startup, investing or raising funding in Estonia, and implementing startup-friendly regulations such as the Startup Visa.

Startup community event


What are we hoping to achieve?


For a long time, our goal was to have 1000 active startups in Estonia. That was accomplished in early 2020 with the launch of Estonian Startup Database. Later that year, Startup Estonia launched a White Paper for the 2021-2027 period, highlighting the potential future development and a collective vision for our startup community. 

Here are the 4 verticals highlighted in there:

  • Deeper involvement and mutual responsibility for the future development of our startup ecosystem
  • Solidarity in the organisation and implementation of various future activities alongside other members of the community
  • Increased emphasis on science-based thinking & decision-making
  • Greater cohesiveness and diversity in our startup ecosystem

The Estonian startup community has gathered data about the Estonian startup scene since the year 2006 – all investments, fundings, failures and exits of Estonian tech startups. Through that information we hope to show a reliable picture of the Estonian startup landscape and provide you with a possibility to follow along with the progress it's making.

Startup Estonia's program is powered by Foundation KredEx and financed from the European Regional Development Fund with 7 million euros.

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