Our Data and Methodology

The Startup Heatmap tracks the development of startup ecosystems over time. We map ecosystems along 5 dimensions: International connectivity, strength of the entrepreneurial community, their perception and trust among founders, performance as well as long-term impact on job and business creation.

Our research is driven by an annual survey as well as the collection of a range of indicators measuring ecosystem dynamics. We guide founders, investors, and ecosystem builders in their search for startup destinations as well as in making strategic choices.

A particular interest lies in the exploration of success factors for cities that aim to grow their startup community by attracting international founders, investors, and collaborators.

Founder Opinions

Cities Tracked

Connections Mapped

Accelerators

The exploration of businesses´ competitive resources relies on the ability of the ecosystem to attract a differentiated set of resources and to enable sustainable synergies between them. The canonical indexes are still not able to capture the magnitude (*) of entrepreneurial ecosystems in which companies grow and develop their business. Renewed cross-sectoral and spatial relations are constantly redefining this magnitude. In this regard, single metrics, related for example to innovation and business performances, but also infrastructure availability, are not able to outline a consistent picture about the most favourable conditions triggering entrepreneurial development and featuring virtuous entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Focusing on startups, our approach combines different data sources and investigates entrepreneurial ecosystems at two different levels: the accelerators and the cities. These are our unit of analysis, whereas our unit of observation is multilevel.

 * Magnitude refers to the environment’s attractiveness for new players, such as foreigners in a city, new creative talents in a co-working space, new members in a social association etc.

1. The structure of our dataset

To define and describe the structure of our dataset, we propose five composite variables:

 

  1. Connectivity
  2. Community
  3. Perception & Trust
  4. Performance, and
  5. Impact.
Theme Variable Description Source of Data
Perception & Outlook City Popularity  % of founders naming the city as a possible startup location for a hypothetical startup. Variable can be broken down by year, origin and the field of the startup  Representative annual survey of startup founders in Europe since 2015 
Perception & Outlook Popularity Score Formula is N – (r-1) / N (r = rank) 
see here 
Representative annual survey of startup founders in Europe since 2015 
Perception & Outlook City Popularity, Growth of Popularity  Percentage point increase in the % of the vote YoY  Representative annual survey of startup founders in Europe since 2015 
Perception & Outlook City Popularity, Growth of Popularity  Percentage point increase, rolling 3 year average, e.g. avg. % founder vote 2017-19 vs. 2020-22  Representative annual survey of startup founders in Europe since 2015 
Perception & Outlook City Popularity among High-Tech startups  % of founders naming the city as a possible startup location among founders of startups in the category “High-tech”  Representative annual survey of startup founders in Europe since 2015 
Perception & Outlook City Popularity by startup sector 

% of founders naming the city as a possible startup location among founders of startups in the categories: 

Consumer & Platforms  –  Tech/Hardware 

SaaS & Enterprise Software  – Health & Biotech 

Fintech  – Big Data 

eCommerceOther 

Representative annual survey of startup founders in Europe since 2015 

Data is accumulated over years to calculate the sector popularity. 

Perception & Outlook City Popularity, sectors in which city ranks high  List of sectors in which the city has higher share of vote than the median of cities in the sector

Representative annual survey of startup founders in Europe since 2015 

Data is accumulated over years to calculate the sector popularity. 

Perception & Outlook City Popularity by Origin Region 

% of founders naming the city as a possible startup location based on founder origin from: 

  • West 
  • Nord.Balt 
  • Med 
  • CEE 
  • Benelux 
  • UK.Ire 
  • Non-EU 
Representative annual survey of startup founders in Europe since 2015 
Perception & Outlook City Popularity by Current Region 

% of founders naming the city as a possible startup location based on founder current location from: 

  • West 
  • Nord.Balt 
  • Med 
  • CEE 
  • Benelux 
  • UK.Ire 
  • Non-EU 
Representative annual survey of startup founders in Europe since 2015 
Perception & Outlook City Ratings 

% of founders voting for a city and giving a high or very high rating (>6 out of 10) in the categories: 

  • Funding Availability 
  • Business Regulations 
  • Talent Availability 
  • Industry Connections 
  • Quality of Startup Support System 
  • Value for Money 
Representative annual survey of startup founders in Europe since 2015  
Perception & Outlook City Future Outlook  % of founders based in a city rating its future outlook positive or very positive (>6 out of 10).   Representative annual survey of startup founders in Europe since 2015  
Perception & Outlook City Visibility, Twitter  Sum of followers of tweets mentioning the city in connections with startups   Primary data collection from twitter (since 2018)  
Perception & Outlook City Visibility, Linkedin  Sum of followers of posts mentioning the city in connections with startups Primary data collection from Linkedin (since 2023 
Perception & Outlook City Visibility, News  Number of mentions of the city in startup news per year  Tracking of all articles on dedicated European tech blogs (full text articles since 2019). 
Connectivity  City Reach  Number of diverse countries reached based on founder votes  Representative annual survey of startup founders in Europe since 2015
Connectivity  Level of foreign born founders  Estimation of the % of foreign-born founders per city based on comparison of origin country and current location country of founders answering the survey   Representative annual survey of startup founders in Europe since 2015  
Connectivity  Marketshare of international investments  % of total international early-stage deals available in Europe from 2015-2018 captured by city  Directional data of investments between 100.000 € and 5mn € from 2015-2018 based on Pitchbook investment database. 
Connectivity International Conferences  Number of international followers of large tech conferences in Europe  Primary data collection of facebook followers’ origins of the 37 leading tech conferences in Europe. 
Connectivity International Accelerators  Number of international participants in tech accelerators per city by year of acceleration  Primary data collection of all participants of >100 leading tech accelerator programs in Europe since 2015  
Connectivity  Establishment of 2nd branches of unicorns  Number of 2nd branches established by unicorns per city showing the attractiveness of the city for internationally successful tech companies  Primary data collection of offices of offices of unicorns  
Startup Support  Number of accelerated startups per city  Number of startups participating in accelerator programs located in the city  Manual tracking by DEEP research team of all startups participating in a list of >120 top accelerator programs 
Startup Support  Number of accelerated startups per vertical 

Number of startups per vertical in the following categories: 

-Purpose   -Fintech  

-Health   -IoT

-BigData  -SaaS 

Manual tracking by DEEP research team of all startups participating in a list of >120 top accelerator programs 
Startup Support  Avg. number of employees of startups accelerated in city  Average of sum of the employees today based on year of acceleration, e.g. startups accelerated in 2020 in Berlin today have an average of 9 employees  Manual tracking by DEEP research team of all startups participating in a list of >120 top accelerator programs 
Startup Support  Avg. sum of funding of startups accelerated in city  Average of sum of funding raised today based on year of acceleration, e.g. startups accelerated in 2020 in Berlin today have raised 2mn € on average  Manual tracking by DEEP research team of all startups participating in a list of >120 top accelerator programs 
Startup Support  Share of follow-on funding success  % share of all startups participating in accelerators in a city that have total funds raised of more than 100,000 USD per acceleration year  Manual tracking by DEEP research team of all startups participating in a list of >120 top accelerator programs 
Startup Support  Number of Opportunities 
Number of opportunities for international startups listed on Startup Heatmap per city per year 
Manual tracking of opportunities by DEEP Research team on weekly basis as well as partner submissions 
Diversity  Share of Female Founders  Share of female founders per year based on annual sample of >10-20,000 founders  Identification of a sample of 10-20,000 founders as a basis for the Heatmap Survey 
Diversity  Avg. funding for female-led startups  Avg. funding of female-led startups in accelerators based on accelerated year  Manual tracking by DEEP research team of all startups participating in a list of >120 top accelerator programs 
Diversity  Share of founders with Tech Skills  Share of founders with skills in programming listed on Linkedin profiles per city, based on sample >10-20,000 founders per year  Identification of a sample of 10-20,000 founders as a basis for the Heatmap Survey, only for about 2-5,000 per year we can identify skillsets 
Community  Meetups  Number of startup related meetup events per city  Primary data collection of tech related meetups, their title, date, description and street level location in European cities since 2020 
Community  Meetup Group Members Growth  Growth of rolling average of 3 years of meetup group members per city, e.g. 2017-19 vs. 20-22  Meetup.com 
Community  Availability Developers  Number of developers registered on the leading developer platform in Europe (stackoverflow) per city  Primary data collection of registered developers per city 
Community  Availability Developers, Growth  Growth of rolling average of 3 years of developers per city, e.g. 2017-19 vs. 20-22  Dealroom.co 
Community  Meetup Participant Growth  Growth of active participants of meetups since 2014  Secondary data provided by meetup.com 
Investments  Sum of funds raised  Sum of VC funding raised per year per city since 2014  Secondary data provided by dealroom for 100 cities 
Investments  Sum of funds, 3 yr average  Total sum of VC investments over the past 3 complete years divided by 3  Dealroom.co 
Investments  Number of seed deals   Number of investment rounds between 450k – 2.5mn USD  Dealroom.co 
Investments  Sum of funds, Growth of 3yr average  Growth of rolling average of 3 years of VC investments per city, e.g. 2017-19 vs. 20-22  Dealroom.co 
Investments  Sum of exits realized  Sum of realized exits per year per city since 2014  Secondary data provided by dealroom for 100 cities 
Investments  Number of deals per vertical  Last 3 years vs. last 12 months  Crunchbase 
Costs  Salary Level Developers  Median salary of senior software developer per city  Secondary data provided by Teleport 
Tech Trends 

Relative importance of tech trends 

 

(Sheet “VerticalFocus 

PercofMedian”) 

 

Number of mentions of a topic in relation to a city in relation to the median number of mentions of the topic across all cities 

 

Calculation is done across meetups, twitter (discontinued) and news data. Final score is the average of the three numbers 

Topics: 

-3D Printing  – AgTech  

-AI & Data     – CleanTech  

-Crowdfund  – Cybersecurity  

-Drone               -Female 

-FinTech           – Gaming 

-Health & BioTech  

-High-Tech 

-Infrastructure   – IoT  

-Logistics            – Mobile  

-Mobility             – SaaS  

-Sustainability    -VR 

 
Job Creation  Jobs Openings  Number of jobs created per quarter, per year and per sector  Linkedin 
GeoData  Population  Number of people living in the metropolitan area  Eurostat 
Universities  Number of university founders  Number of founders identified on Crunchbase having studied at a university in that city per year  ETER 
Talent  Number of STEM Students  Number of students studying Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics as share of total students per city based on ETER database  ETER 
Talent  Share of STEM Students  Percentage of students studying Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics as share of total students per city based on ETER database  ETER
Universities  Spin-off rate  Number of avg. seed deals of last 3 years divided by number of STEM Students  Crunchbase / ETER 
Investments  Investment Purchasing Power  Investments divided by median cost of software developer  Dealroom.co / Teleport 
Investments  Number of Kickstarter campaigns  Number of kickstarter campaigns launched per city per year based on a kickstarter.com  Kickstarter.com 
Innovation Culture  Total sum of EU Funding per city  Sum of Horizon Research Funding won by organizations headquartered in the city updated on quarterly basis  European Commission 

 

The five different composite variables are investigated by looking at a multitude of units of observation. We have privileged the startup giving us information about intangible resources spread out from the entrepreneurial ecosystem where the startups are embedded.

2. Multilevel dataset description

Our dataset is based on primary and secondary data collected by a tracking system and an annual survey. These elementary variables, at different levels, are at the core of the composite variables explored by the touched upon metrics.

The tracking system

Primary and secondary data is collected since 2015. At the core of our tracking system there is a composite data team that collects the qualitative data by monitoring social media, forums, blogs, and websites. The data collection results from double-checked processes implemented by different data analysts at the same time. Data is updated at least quarterly.

For Accelerators:

Tracking system maps more than 155 European accelerators since 2015.

Elementary variables are: Total funds raised by Alumni; follow-on funding, defined as the number of startups having participated in an accelerator who have closed more than one funding round and having reached a total equity funding amount higher than 100.000 USD; number of employees of startups having participated since 2015.

For Cities:

Tracking system maps startups, startup founders and CEOs, events, and related topics.

Elementary variables are: number of tweets mentioning at the same time the name of the city and the word “startup” (and variations thereof); number of startup related meetups per city; sum of VC (Venture Capital) funding; sum of realized exits; median salary of a senior software developer; directional data of investments between 100.000 EUR and 5.000.000 EUR from 2015-2018; sum of offices of leading startup companies in the city.

 

The SHM Annual Survey

The main goal of the survey is to measure the intangible resources of an environment, the so called “atmosphere” (Marshall, 1919). The survey focuses on understanding founder mobility and the perception of the quality of startup communities in the eyes of founders as a proxy for their future development potential. The survey is mainly based on categorical variables covering the recognition of startup places in Europe, their rating in the main categories (access to capital, access to talent, ease of doing business, industry connections and quality of the ecosystem) as well as the qualitative assessment of the brand image via associative questions (“What do you think of when you hear “Berlin startup scene”?). Further questions cover the actual mobility and transnational connectivity of startup founders in Europe, asking for the movement history as well as connections their startup has built, including opening international branches, attracting foreign investors, hiring international talent or also just frequent business trips.

These questions are paired with impartial variables measuring the number and topical focus of startup community events, investment activities or visibility of a startup hub in startup media.

The survey’s units of observation are: the tech founders, ecosystem experts, startup team members, employees or persons interested to join a startup, investors, startup community builders or service providers. It has run annually since 2015.

 

3. Our Indexes

We have implemented two indexes for investigating some of the composite variables touched upon.

The Specialization index:

For both accelerators and cities, the words cloud is created by applying a content analysis to the SHM dataset.

For accelerators, the analysis is based on self-descriptions provided by startups and a list of buzzwords maintained by the Startup Heatmap team.

For cities, the analysis is based on a text database of more than 1.5 million tweets continuously collected on startup cities and the count of mentions of buzzwords grouped in categories (e.g. “fintech” includes blockchain, crypto, payment, insurtech, etc.).

The Trust Score index:

The Trust Score index at both the accelerator and city level shows the relative position of a city or accelerator in the ranking. The term “trust” indicates both a high level of “brand awareness” among founders as well as a positive attitude towards the selected destination, as survey participants are asked to provide a “recommendation”. Data is collected by SHM Annual survey.

The index is defined as: 

where r is the rank. Since r depends on the SHM Annual survey representativeness of the sample, ranking is a weighted value. The weight is based on the share of population represented in the survey at the regional level (here, we don’t refer to NUTS 2. We refer to the touched upon European partition).

N is the total number of accelerators or cities.

4. Our Graphs
The Startup Heatmap Trust Score describes how popular a startup hub or accelerator is. Since 2016, we ask startup founders in an annual survey in which cities and accelerators they would prefer to start a new company.
This graph shows how the Trust Score of a city changed annually.
This word cloud shows in real time which topics are currently being discussed in the startup ecosystem (city-level). Larger font size means more mentions.
Fundings & Exits shows Dealroom.co Data on Investments raised and Exits realized by startups located in this city. We maintain an annual record of the city-level investments to allow for a historically correct comparison.
The visibility graph shows how often the startup hub’s name appears in the media per month. We track the most important startup blogs and twitter mentions here.
How many founders in this hub or accelerator are women? We analyze a representative sample of over 20.000 founders every year to determine the percentage of female founders in the major startup cities in Europe. We also analyze the portfolio’s of top accelerators for this question.
Where do votes come from? This graph shows the geographical origin of the founders voting for a hub in our annual survey. The origin is defined as the place where the founder spent most time growing up.
The spider graph shows the percentage of founders who give a high or very high rating in the six listed categories for a startup hub. The sample is made of the founders who listed the respective hub as one of their favorites.

Santini, E. (2020).  Startup Heatmap Europe Data and Methodology. Available on https://www.startupheatmap.eu/methodology.