Do you really know what makes a new company into a start-up? Here are some characteristics (from “Labs of Latvia”)
- quick global scalability,
- repeatable business model,
- problem solving where solution is not obvious,
- high failure risk,
- special funding instruments like FFF (family, friends and fools), crowdfunding, Business Angels, VC (venture capital) , IPO (initial public offering),
- company designed to be sold
How Come Latvia Has Such a Strong Start-up Ecosystem?
- The bank crisis of 2008-2009 resulted in a lot of redundancies and, as a result, gave birth to fintech start-ups and supported a community driven by different mind-set.
- Latvia has no big local market, therefore it was scaling global from the beginning
- It is a new country with a new society and strong drive forward
- Multilingual highly educated talented people
- LIAA and government /ministries are strongly involved and supportive; they offer state funds for accelerators, voucher programs to enable start-ups to go to international conferences and to meet investors, support of events and activities, like the weekly “hackathons” to present ideas, special start-up visa and lower taxation etc.
- Good universities provide human capital and many more
- Focus on science-based start-ups (deep-tech)
- Riga – very good start-up hub due to its geographic location (where East meets West meets North), also the strongest airport among the three Baltic Countries
- More points why Latvia www.Start-uplatvia.eu/index.php/why-latvia
Sources and Services at LIAA
A great starting point is the new Magnetic Latvia Business Information Centre at the Riga Intl. Airport, departure sector “C”, which provides information for business development in Latvia and offers areas for meetings with local business partners. The helpful team of the business information centre can organize an entry pass for the local business partner to the secure area. It also displays fine examples of Latvian design – ceramics, textiles, wood crafts and others.
Brochures about business areas: listing companies, their interest in markets, contact persons etc. are available
The Business Guide 2018 with an overview of the Latvian economy, FDIs, information on promising business sectors, human resources, taxation and all you need to know when doing business in Latvia.
More information on launching a business in Latvia: www.liaa.gov.lv/en
Labs of Latvia: Start-up community platform
ALTUM: State-owned development finance institution. Financial agency giving acceleration funds via fund administrator partners, Commercialization Reactor being one of them.
Within the scope of start-ups, LIAA operates under the brand Magnetic Latvia Start-up
In June 2018, this new brand has launched its own information portal targeted at foreigners: www.Startuplatvia.eu/
In this page, WELCOME PACK section lists all the benefits a Start-up can avail of if it establishes itself in Latvia: all the perks/benefits are divided into “money”and “cool stuff” – please have a look. Among them: innovation voucher for companies to innovate; financial support to go and attend global Start-up events/conferences; Start-up law which offers substantial tax incentives for qualifying Start-ups, etc
To complement this webpage, there is also a Facebook page à www.facebook.com/Start-uplatvia/
