Ireland tops list of entrepreneurial countries

A new study has placed Ireland at the top of the list of Europe’s tech entrepreneurs in terms of country.

The list, which was compiled by the Wall Street Journal, looked at data from Dow Jones VentureSource on the total amount of venture capital by tech firms since 2003. That was sorted into countries, divided by population to come up with a figure per capita and averaged per quarter.

With an average deal size of $278.73 billion per capita, Ireland beat Sweden, the UK, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, France, Germany and Switzerland. The WSJ said the country beat the venture funding capital average per capita in the European free trade area, attracting four times as much funding. Sweden followed close behind with 3.7 times the average. There were 311 VC deals recorded since 2003, with 42 per cent of that figure since 2009.

At the other end of the table Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria.

However, Ireland’s success pales in comprison to other countries. Outside of Europe, Israel has managed to close 1,183 deals since 2003, with an average value of $1,092.52 per capita. The US, meanwhile, has closed 23,716 deals with a value of $660.41 per capita.