Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, is home to great builders. LEGO, a childhood staple, is based here and serves as a great example of the inventiveness and ingenuity of the city’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Brick by brick, this city has built deep vertical strengths and a wide talent pool. In fact, Denmark is the world leader in entrepreneurship education, through the Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship.

With an educational focus, it’s no surprise that Copenhagen has strong universities including University of Copenhagen, IT University of Copenhagen, and the innovative Technological University of Denmark, which has catalyzed approximately 2,200 startups according to Startup Genome’s 2019 Global Startup Ecosystem Report.

Copenhagen is also seeing a lot of success in the Fintech and Edtech sub-sectors. For Fintech, Copenhagen has spawned high-growth startups like Tradeshift, a unicorn that raised $250 million in 2018 and is now based in San Francisco. In addition, Danske Bank, Nykredit, Accelerace, and Copenhagen FinTech have joined together and created the Copenhagen FinTech Accelerator.

When it comes to Edtech startups, Copenhagen is similarly well-suited. For one, Denmark is #1 in Scandinavia and #2 in the world in educational investments. Earlier this year the country created its own registered Edtech association called EdTech Denmark. A couple of notable Edtech startups include Labster, a startup that creates digital tools to help students which raised $21 million in a Series B round, and Area9 Lyceum, in which Danish Growth Fund invested $30 million.

In our 2019 assessment of Copenhagen, we ranked the city’s startup ecosystem globally. Highlights include:

• Copenhagen’s ecosystem value is now around $4.6 billion.

• Copenhagen is a top 20 ecosystem for Edtech.

• The average Copenhagen-based software engineer earns $69,700 per year.

Our local member driving this flourishing ecosystem is Digital Hub Denmark. It’s a public-private partnership between the Danish Government, the Confederation of Danish Industry, Danish Chamber of Commerce, and Finance Denmark. 

Digital Hub Denmark’s ambition is to make Denmark the most attractive digital growth environment in Europe, and they are succeeding as Denmark is one of the most digital countries in the EU. The organization supports the digital ecosystem in Denmark by connecting private companies, researchers, tech-entrepreneurs, and students in the development of new digital products and services.

“The ecosystem is at its best yet,” said Tommy Andersen, Managing Partner of byFounders and Chairman of the Danish Government’s Entrepreneurial Panel. “With recent unicorns, scaleups, and great successes, we have reached a critical mass and more investors are setting up a presence here.”

Would you like to become a startup ecosystem ambassador for Copenhagen? Please get in touch with us.