Bucharest ranked as the tenth most popular city in Europe to build a start-up. In the country, there were 402,428 startup businesses overall from 2015 to 2019, with a large number of startups in the software sector, according to data compiled by Paymentsense, a financial technology company that operates credit card payment services for small and medium-sized businesses.
Most of the Romanian start-ups were hosted by Bucharest, according to the data.
This places Romania in a group of central and eastern countries (cities) hosting important startup ecosystems: above Hungary (344,772 start-ups in the period), but below the Czech Republic (464,772).
From 2015 to 2019, there has been a 9.5% growth in the number of start-ups in Romania – close to the rate seen in the Czech Republic but well inferior to that boasted by Hungary (+39%).
A new start-up in Romania has a 51.8% survival rate in its first five years, ranking Romania 9th out of 30 countries analysed.
Ranking first is Malta, where businesses have a 78.7% survival rate. In second place is Sweden, with a five-year business survival rate of 60.8%.
Despite inflation, Bucharest remains among Europe’s cheapest cities
