Work for the home team
What do the World Cup and startups have in common?
All eyes are on Qatar as the World Cup enters the quarter-finals with 8 teams spread across Europe, South America, and Africa. Some of the storylines playing out in this year’s competition are familiar to the tech community.
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Middle East momentum
The World Cup in Qatar is outpacing previous World Cups in consumer spending. Qatar is showing the prevalence of its tech adoption, with nearly 90% of purchases being contactless.
Money is pouring into startups in the region as well, particularly in fintech, matching a trend that’s playing out across other emerging markets.
Covid-19 accelerated the Middle East’s digital transformation. Demand for e-commerce, education tech, and modernized healthcare remains high, attracting entrepreneurs from the U.S.
The UAE remains a hotbed for funding, with 33 of the 50 highest-funded startups in the region. Turkey and Saudi Arabia round out the Middle East’s top three nations by investment.
Unlike many other ecosystems, 31% of the population is under the age of 15, presenting an opportunity. Young people are connected, with extremely high rates of smartphone use. With its abundance of youthful energy, the Middle East venture capital market is expected to maintain healthy growth.
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Africa rising
Small but mighty Morocco is just the fourth African team to reach the quarter-finals. Its success mirrors the success of tech hubs throughout the continent.
In a year where venture capital funding across the globe has been significantly scaled back, Africa has been an anomaly. In fact, the continent is on track for a record year for funding.
Africa’s tech ecosystem netted nearly $5B in funding in 2021, according to some estimates, with about two-thirds of that funding going to fintech. Flutterwave, the continent’s highest valued tech company, snagged a $3B valuation and plans to expand payments throughout Africa and the Middle East.
There are other bright spots: For example, women-led healthcare tech companies are on a mission to close the doctor-patient gap and provide affordable health services to everyone.
The International Finance Corporation launched a $225M venture capital platform to back early-stage startups in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and Pakistan. While many of these emerging markets continue to receive a small percentage of the global capital funding, the population is young, tech-savvy, and, thanks in part to Covid, hungry for digital disruption.
See our list: 5 Top Startups Hiring Across Africa
Bet on Brazil??
Brazil may be the team to beat this World Cup, and the South American country’s startup scene is catching fire too.
In 2021, Brazil-based startups raised a record $9.4B in funding, more than twice as much as the previous year’s total funding. Nearly 3k startups make their home in Brazil’s most populous city, S?o Paulo. These include 11 unicorns valued at over $1B.
Venture capital firms have helped to contribute to the growth of the startup sector in Brazil and are increasing in number as well. The country added 84 VC firms in the past few years, bringing the country's total to over 300.
A little over half of all startups in Brazil have operations in S?o Paulo. They include companies like mobile game maker Wildlife Studios, which has been called “Brazil’s most valuable tech company with the widest global reach.” Big tech companies like Uber are growing their presence in the region, too.
Other cities with vibrant entrepreneurial communities include Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, and Florianópolis.
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See our list: Come to Brazil! These 5 Hot Tech Startups are Hiring Now
Fielding French talent
France is looking fierce on the pitch, and the nation’s startup scene is just as ambitious.
VC investment in French startups doubled to nearly $12B in 2021 as the country welcomed 12 new unicorns. A mix of highly skilled young professionals, booming VC investments, and an ecosystem that supports and promotes growth has helped propel the City of Light onto the global startup map.
The city boasts the most research professionals, high-tech patents, and annual R&D spending in Europe. Paris also hosts several top startup events, including Big Data & AI Paris and Hello Tomorrow Global Summit. The city’s proximity to economic centers like London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Madrid, Rome, and Luxembourg adds to the appeal for entrepreneurs.
Leading tech categories include cosmetics, healthcare, aeronautics, digital transformation, and sustainable cities—which makes sense considering the city’s ambition to be Europe’s greenest city by 2030. Success stories include online home improvement marketplace ManoMano and crypto security company Ledger, which have both raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors.
To keep up the momentum, France’s president pledges billions more in tech investment and founder-friendly immigration laws. Startups on the French Tech Next 40/120 list plan to create more than 200k jobs by 2025.
From the Founders: Joe Malandruccolo, Compa
“There’s this huge information asymmetry out there between the job seeker and the employer. The employer has a whole compensation team, they run compensation surveys, they have a compensation committee. You, as a candidate, you have none of that. So that’s what we’re trying to do — bring it back to a verified, trusted source of data where everyone can agree on the facts to make a decision, because pay transparency is not going way.”
In this From the Founders interview, we hear from Joe Malandruccolo of Compa about his efforts to bring pay transparency for everyone. Joe shares about his journey going from being an EMT to a pilot to a consultant to an engineer... to Co-Founder & CTO of Compa. Read more →
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