ESNA releases Report following its first Advisory Board Meeting
ESNA presents insights from “the voice of the market”. The Advisory Board encourages ESNA to continue its progressive work on advancing the startup ecosystem’s agenda in Europe by highlighting tools to improve competitiveness, broadening funding options, and streamlining bureaucracy. The full report released today details the Advisory Board recommendations.
ESNA releases its Advisory Board Report today. The report encapsulates the depth and breadth of the discussions held during its first Advisory Board meeting through the lens of the 8 Startup Nation Standards, surfacing insights from its 25 Advisory Board Members and reflecting on their experience in venture capital, academia, startups, and policymaking.
ESNA’s Advisory Board serves as “the voice of the market”, guiding ESNA’s work on relevant topics for the startup ecosystem through collective expertise.
Tools to improve competitiveness
Several solutions were proposed to boost the EU’s startup competitiveness: facilitating market access, retaining, and attracting talent, namely by improving visa options available to startups and accelerating digitalisation in administrative matters.
Adopting regulatory sandboxes is a mechanism supported by the Advisory Board, which reiterated that complex regulation hampers ecosystem competitiveness. Public-private partnerships, as well as commercially oriented grants, are also regarded as highly desirable.
Funding – finance and stock options
The Advisory Board argues in favour of a more competitive taxation framework that would avoid stock options taxation on multiple occasions.
In addition, streamlining processes and making funding information easily accessible to all is paramount to making the market entry process more accessible for startups. The Advisory Board suggests the creation of a funding hub that features aggregated data on grants and support programs. The Advisory Board also recommends the creation of more incentives for pension funds to invest in European startups.
Streamlining bureaucracy
Introducing a startup fast lane where businesses can access administrative requirements and funding opportunities in a single place would be a valuable first step towards streamlining bureaucracy. Cross-border collaboration is also seen as an incentive for greater European policy harmonisation.
The initiative of the Better Regulation Agenda from the European Commission – aimed at ensuring evidence-based and transparent EU law-making processes – is expected to deliver on the harmonisation and simplification objectives, fostering collaborative efforts in policy design that can enhance legal frameworks.
Towards a thriving European startup ecosystem
By addressing key areas such as regulatory challenges, financial mechanisms, and bureaucratic streamlining, the Advisory Board suggested solutions for creating a more fertile ground for startups to thrive. The insights and recommendations from this meeting provided actionable steps towards realising the potential of the European startup ecosystem. It aims to engage European startup ecosystem stakeholders and the broader community to turn these insights into impactful policies and practices.