Stop counting unicorns
Too many states greet every unicorn as a national triumph. However, the louder a country cheers a start-up, the smaller it starts to sound. There’s no doubt that possessing one of the world’s smartest and most advanced systems of digital public services helped put Estonia, by no measure a big country, on the map. Meet […] Stop counting unicorns was originally published on Emerging Europe .
Estonia's reputation as a hotspot for successful tech start-ups has led to many countries celebrating their own emerging tech scenes. However, the more a country highlights its unicorns, the less impressive they seem. Estonia's smart digital services have helped it gain international recognition, and the country boasts the highest number of unicorns per capita in the world.
Start-ups in Estonia and its Baltic neighbours are often presented as a national achievement, but that mindset should change. Europe now has over 40,000 funded tech companies, and over 27,000 new ones were started last year. The focus should be on retaining the value generated rather than chasing more unicorns.
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