Acknowledgments

Startup Genome Authors

• JF Gauthier, Founder & CEO
• Marc Penzel, Founder & President
• Stephan Keuster, Managing Partner
• Dr. Christopher Haley, Head of Research
• Forrest Wright, Research Assessment Lead
• Parshant Sharma, Director of Data Science
• Pranav Arya, Sr. Director, Ecosystem Strategy
• Kelly Wolfgang, Content Manager

Project Team

• JF Gauthier, Founder & CEO
• Marc Penzel, Founder & President
• Stephan Keuster, Managing Partner
• Tricia (Whitlock) Naik, Chief Operating Officer
• Dr. Christopher Haley, Head of Research
• Forrest Wright, Research Assessment Lead
• Kelly Wolfgang, Content Manager
• Parshant Sharma, Director of Data Science
• Rahul Chatterjee, Director, Global Operations & MD, Delhi
• Pranav Arya, Sr. Director, Ecosystem Strategy
• Sama Siddiqui, Director of Member Relations
• Franzis Walther, Manager, Operations & Communications
• Marina Krizman, Senior Business Development Specialist
• Shreesh Dubey, Senior Operations Manager
• Nancy Agrawal, Finance Manager
• Ananya Sharma, Operations and HR lead
• Rahul Kumar, Data Scientist
• Aman Bansal, Data Scientist
• Naajid Sarosh, Data Engineer
• Shivansh Madaan, Business Analyst
• Fernando Nahat Jardim, Business Development Manager
• Anna Chadwell, Key Account Manager
• Pavan Kumar, Manager of Sales Operations & CRM Administrator
• Shekhar Parihar, Process Lead, Lead Generation & CRM Support
• Neha Thapliyal, Operations Lead, Client Relations
• Neha Nawathe, Operations Specialist
• Tanishq Malik, Senior Business Analyst
• Parth Arora, Business Analyst
• Ana Lucia Osorio, Executive Assistant to the CEO
• Bryan Steve Reyes, Executive Assistant
• Manu Sinha, Data Science Intern
• Litslink, Website Development
• Sara Inglês, Designer

Global Entrepreneurship Network

• Jonathan Ortmans, President
• Mark Marich, Executive Vice President
• Peter Komives, Vice President for Strategic Development
• Matt Smith, Director for Policy and Research
• Cecilia Wessinger, Director for Global Community
• Carlos Iniguez, Director for Startups
• Kathryn Forrest, Director for Communications
• Tom Hancock, Research Associate

Other acknowledgements

While all errors and omissions remain the responsibility of Startup Genome, we would like to express our particular gratitude to Ingrid Barth, Felipe Matos, and the rest of the team at ABStartups, which served as the Secretariat of the Startup20 as part of Brazil’s 2024 G20 Presidency; to Ethan Webster, Arnobio Morelix, and Sarah Siddiqi for methodology discussions and support with data; and to numerous interviewees who supported the primary research, including Ekaterina Vainberg, Charlie Ryan, Eric Hansen, Timothy Barnes, Sezen Güngör, Erkam Tüzgen, Poyni Bhatt, Shivakiran Sathyanarayan Makam, Franziska Teubert-Hoffmann, Franca Constanze Plewe, Mohammed Alamro, Recado Hein Andrews, Ahmet Cüneyt Selçuk, and others. 

Image Credits

The cover features Brazil. As the host of the 2024 Group of Twenty (G20) summit, Brazil has positioned itself as a key global leader  In recent years, Brazil's startup ecosystem has flourished, with São Paulo ranking as top 30 global startup ecosystem and producing more than a dozen active unicorns. 

All images taken from Freepik and Unsplash.

Key Author Bios

Startup Genome

JF Gauthier LinkedIn

Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur and Founder & CEO of Startup Genome, JF is the world's leading voice in innovation ecosystem development, having advised more than 100 governments and agencies across 50 countries. He has founded five businesses and led other across two continents and three sectors (Tech, Life Sciences, and Cleantech). He is an angel investor and previously worked in corporate innovation, advising several of the world's largest tech companies.

Marc Penzel LinkedIn

Marc leads global growth and impact. He advises governments, scientific organizations and venture backed startups alike and is an appointed Expert in Entrepreneurship, IT and Future of Economic Progress by the World Economic Forum.

Prior to founding Startup Genome, he co-led the startup ecosystem development unit at Silicon Valley-based Startup Compass (acquired by Sage). At PwC, KPMG, and Bayer Group’s internal management consultancy, Marc advised business executives across various sectors. He also founded a nonprofit organization to catalyze social innovation.

Stephan Kuester LinkedIn

Stephan works with clients in government and private industry consortia all around the world, advising on the creation and the acceleration of tech and innovation clusters. Prior to his role at Startup Genome, Stephan headed up the International Consulting practice at UK ecosystem agency Tech Nation (fka Tech City UK) in London and served as Managing Director of digitalswitzerland. Previous to his work in the digital ecosystems space, Stephan worked as an executive director for professional services firms Arthur Andersen and Ernst & Young.

Dr. Christopher Haley LinkedIn

Chris is Head of Research at Startup Genome. He was formerly head of new technology and startup research at Nesta, the Innovation foundation, and, prior to that, worked for several years in university technology transfer and enterprise strategy. 

Chris has advisory roles with the U.K.’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for Entrepreneurship, the UK Intellectual Property Office and the ScaleUp Institute. He is a 'Startup Europe' Ambassador, a Policy Fellow at the Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge, and a Senior Fellow at the Global Entrepreneurship Network. He also consults as a Senior Entrepreneurship Strategy Specialist at The World Bank.

Parshant Sharma LinkedIn

Parshant has been in data analysis for the past 10 years, six of which have been in Startup Genome’s Data Science team. He leads the team responsible for quantitative data infrastructure and analysis, including data on over three million companies, 280+ ecosystems, and survey data from more than 100,000 startup executives across the globe.

Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN)

Jonathan Ortmans LinkedIn

Founder and president of the Global Entrepreneurship Network, working to foster healthier local entrepreneurship ecosystems in more than 170 countries while connecting them into one global ecosystem. In 2008, he launched GEN’s cornerstone initiative, Global Entrepreneurship Week, enabling millions of people to explore their potential through thousands of local GEW activities and competitions each November. Through building GEW, Ortmans assembled a broad multi-disciplinary coalition that is the backbone of GEN operations, including entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, researchers and affiliated support organizations. He serves as a longtime advisor to the Kauffman Foundation and chairs the Global Entrepreneurship Congress.