The SETsquared Partnership has been ranked as the 3rd leading startup hub in Europe and the top entry from the UK and Ireland by the Financial Times and Statista’s Special Report on Europe’s Leading Startup Hubs.

The report ranked 125 startup hubs across 21 European countries using data and feedback from alumni and independent experts, including investors, and it also examined the success of emerging companies.

SETsquared is recognised for its unique collaboration model across six research-intensive universities and the quality of its place-based support for deep tech startups, alongside the scale, expertise, and capabilities that the six universities bring across the South and South West regions.

“We don’t offer cookie-cutter-style acceleration.”

Marty Reid, Executive Director of SETsquared, says, “It’s fantastic to be recognised as one of the top three startup hubs in Europe. It’s a testament to the expertise and hard work from teams across our business acceleration centres and universities and to the culture of collaboration across the ecosystems that we are part of.”

“We don’t offer cookie-cutter-style acceleration. Our portfolio of support is really built around the diversity of startup’s needs, bringing together networks of mentors, advisors, and business connections to get ventures investor-ready or engaged in their target markets. We hope this ranking shows the enormous potential of regional ecosystems working together to build the globally leading companies we need to take on our biggest challenges.”

With six business acceleration centres and a range of sector-based innovation and investment support programmes, SETsquared’s mission is to turn innovation into thriving business. Since 2002, it has supported over 5,000 entrepreneurs working in the most challenging fields of science and technology to raise £4.4bn in investment.

The report, compiled alongside Statista and Sifted, rated each startup hub based on data and feedback from its alumni across six categories, including mentoring and training development, infrastructure, legal assistance, business development, networking, and funding. Independent experts, including angel investors, VCs, entrepreneurs and academics, also added their evaluations and additional scores were awarded according to the most successful startups to have emerged from each hub.

See the full rankings                                  

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