Call for entries: Europe’s Leading Start-Up Hubs 2024

Europe now boasts a start-up scene to rival the US. According to Sifted, the entrepreneurs’ content platform backed by the Financial Times, some 98 cities across the continent have produced at least one tech unicorn: an early-stage business valued at $1bn, or more. But information about the business incubator and accelerator programmes running in these places — and their success rates — can still be hard to find.

So the FT, with its research partner Statista and its colleagues at Sifted, has decided to launch a research project to identify Europe’s Leading Start-Up Hubs in 2024.

And we need your help.

If you are a representative of a start-up incubator or accelerator programme, we would like you to register your programme’s details and tell us how it has performed. You can do so by clicking this link to our online registration form, which takes only a few minutes to complete. The registration period will run until June 16.

You will then receive a specific survey link that you can share with your alumni, allowing them to evaluate your programme(s). Expect to be contacted about the alumni survey soon after registration.

Or, if you are an investor, adviser, venture capitalist or business angel, we would like you to tell us about the incubators and accelerators you know of, and to what extent you would recommend them. You can do so by clicking this link to our short online survey. Your answers will not be attributed to you.

We will then publish a ranking of the top European Start-Up Hubs in February 2024, as part of a special report with the FT newspaper and online at ft.com and at sifted.eu.

Among the factors that we will incorporate into the ranking process will be:

• Mentoring & training provided

• Infrastructure, eg offices, labs, software

• Legal assistance

• Business development advice

• Networking opportunities

• Funding opportunities

• Cost/fees/equity taken

If you would like to contact us to ask further questions, please send us an email to [email protected] and our colleagues at Statista will respond.

Sifted is the leading media brand for the European start-up community. Backed by the Financial Times, our team of dedicated journalists spans the continent. Our unrivalled journalism sifts through the noise to give you breaking news, insightful analysis and actionable data.

We focus on the human dimension of entrepreneurialism — how the tough reality of running a start-up so often diverges from the mythology; how successful start-ups have shaped inclusive internal cultures; and how some founders have spurned the VC route and bootstrapped their way to success.

Click here to learn more and become a member today.