The European Commission’s first European Startup and Scaleup Scoreboard monitors the performance of startup and scaleup ecosystems across the 27 Member States. Italy ranks 20th, showing progress since 2020 but still significant room for improvement
For the first time, the EU has a structured way to measure how well each Member State supports startups and scaleups.
The European Commission has published the first European Startup and Scaleup Scoreboard, bringing together 36 indicators across six dimensions: innovation-friendly regulation, access to finance, market uptake and expansion, talent, infrastructure and services, and impact. The data cover 2020-2025 and show steady progress as 20 out of 27 Member States have improved their performance, suggesting that targeted policies are working.
Member States are ranked across four tiers, front-runners, high-performing, catching-up, and rising countries. Italy sits in the catching-up group, ranked 20th, reaching 74.5% of the EU average. The trend line shows that the Italian Startup and Scaleup Index has improved since 2020, but the gap with the EU average has widened over the same period, as the EU benchmark rose faster. Looking at the six dimensions, access to infrastructure, networks and services is the only area where Italy gets close to the EU average. All other dimensions, finance, market uptake, talent, innovation-friendly regulation and impact, remain below it, with finance and talent as the most significant gaps.
The Scoreboard is not just a ranking exercise. Its findings will feed directly into the forthcoming European Innovation Act and connect to broader efforts to reduce fragmentation across the Single Market, from the EU Inc. framework to the European Business Wallet. The goal is to give both Brussels and national governments a clearer picture of where to act. For Italy, the Scoreboard offers a useful baseline. The improvements since 2020 show that the ecosystem is moving in the right direction. But with most dimensions still below the EU average, the next phase will require further targeted action, particularly on finance and talent, where the distance from European peers remains the largest.
The full Scoreboard is available here.