Austria is known for many things, but most people do not think of start-ups when Austria comes up. Nevertheless, Austria is currently home to around 3,000 start-ups, 6 unicorns (Bitpanda, Copa Data, GoStudent, Loxone, Tricentis and TTTech Auto) and even more soonicorns.
In fact, Austria has a thriving start-up ecosystem, which is supported by key factors like its central geographic location, its access to the European market, and the availability of top ranked educational institutions. The number of start-ups has actually nearly doubled in the last year, which is due to a booming entrepreneurial spirit and an increasing presence of venture capital firms in the country. Furthermore, the coronavirus crisis has helped to improve the contact between start-ups and venture capital funds as communication moved online.
Austrian start-ups work in a wide range of industries, whereas IT and software development account for around 29% of all start-ups. Consumer goods, Life Sciences and industrial technology follow with around 10% respectively. Moreover, the start-ups are increasingly concerned with solving societal problems. For almost every second start-up, social or ecological goals represent an essential corporate objective. Indeed, 34% of the Austrian start-ups were driven by Green Impact principles.
In education and consumer goods sectors, a high number of start-up teams included female founders. However, the share of female founders has remained unchanged for the past three years, at around 17%. But more than 35% of start-ups have at least one woman in the founding team.
Austrian start-ups tend to go global quite quickly, which is partly due to Austria’s very high export ratio and its geography. Over 70% of the start-ups have already entered a foreign market. There is also a high proportion of “born globals” (those who quickly enter markets abroad and also generate the majority of their revenue there). The start-up sector generates roughly two thirds of its sales in the domestic market and less than a third in European markets- Outside of Europe, North America is the most important market, making up 5% of sales.
What will the future of the Austrian start-up ecosystem bring? Be on the lookAUT - because there are many more exciting Austrian mythical creatures on the horizon! Just to mention a few:
- Revo Foods: offers seafood made from plants
- Byrd: developed scalable eCommerce fulfilment solution for online retailers
- Sarcura: created personalised cell therapies
Get in touch if YOU want to know more about the Austrian start-up scene!
