At Startup Genome, we’ve spent years analyzing what drives startup success and how policies shape innovation ecosystems. A recent article from our Founder and CEO, JF Gauthier, and Head of Research, Dr. Christopher Haley, published by World Economic Forum shares key insights from our APEXE Report - G20 Pilot. APEXE is the first-ever national startup policy ranking and a framework designed to evaluate how effective a country is in converting its innovation potential into startup ecosystem performance.

By identifying best practices and assessing policies that directly influence startups, the ranking and report provide a roadmap for policymakers looking to create stronger, more dynamic entrepreneurial environments.

APEXE Ranking Approach

The APEXE Report introduces the new Lab-to-Startup Conversion metric – normalized to GDP and population – to answer the following questions:

1. What is a country’s innovation potential?

2. What is a country’s startup ecosystem performance?

3. To what degree has a country converted its innovation potential into startup ecosystem performance?

APEXE provides a scorecard evaluating a country’s recent startup policies and initiatives against best practices that Startup Genome has identified over the past decade. These best practices are grounded in insights from our work measuring, advising, and analyzing 85 ecosystems across 45 countries, including some of the world’s leading startup hubs.

The Global APEXE Impact

Governments worldwide are competing to create the best environments for startups, knowing that entrepreneurship drives job creation, economic resilience, and global competitiveness. However, not all policy approaches yield the same results. By benchmarking different regions, the APEXE Ranking helps decision-makers understand which policies truly move the needle and where improvements can be made.

The ranking highlights top-performing ecosystems where policy frameworks have significantly contributed to startup success. These global leaders provide valuable lessons for other nations looking to strengthen their startup landscapes and remove barriers to entrepreneurial growth.

At Startup Genome, we believe evidence-based policymaking is essential to fueling startup success. Insights from the APEXE Report offer policymakers a clear, actionable guide to designing ecosystems that attract talent, encourage investment, and foster innovation.

Key Insights

In the World Economic Forum article, you can learn directly from our experts how countries like South Korea, Germany, and Brazil exemplify the APEXE Report’s Lab-to-Startup Conversion and Policy Action Scorecard metrics and how other Latin American and African countries rank among the top in several key metrics, showing the truly global applicability of the measure as a fair benchmark.

Read the full article on World Economic Forum here.