State of the Global Startup Economy
As cryptocurrency has grown in popularity, crypto-related crimes have also been on the rise as Crypto Head showcased in its Crypto Crimes report earlier this year, which found that in 2020 there were 8,801 crypto crime reports to the UK action fraud team. 
Health innovation has been the story of COVID, but economist Mariana Mazzucato says we’re still not doing it right. We need to redesign procurement, rethink old narratives and reassess the value of public investment.
Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Category Archives: Research
Startup Genome: Canada Ranks 14th in The Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2021
Startup Genome | Sep 29, 2021
State of the Global Startup Economy
In March 2020 startups’ prospects looked bleak. Consumer demand had cratered. Travel ceased. Struggling businesses shed workers or closed. Global VC spending dropped 17% in the first quarter compared to the preceding one, with the number of rounds down 5%, according to Crunchbase. In China alone the number of venture rounds plunged 74% in just two months.
See: Are you a Pig, Gazelle or Bear? Beyond Unicorns, Zoology of startups
Then everything changed. Covid-19, which made rapid adopters of us all, slashed a bright line between how we once lived and how we will live. It is a line across which entrepreneurs are uniquely positioned to ferry us. That is why, for many economies, startups are leading the way back to economic vitality.
The pandemic—dire for humans—has been fuel to technology’s fire. Last year Internet capacity rose 35%, reports market-research firm Telegeography. Global broadband traffic in the fourth quarter increased more than 51% over the previous year: a combination of more subscribers using more data during Covid-19, according to OpenVault, which tracks broadband consumption. Global e-commerce shot up to $26.7 trillion, according to the United Nations, with countries like the Republic of Korea, the United Kingdom, and China experiencing especially dramatic spikes. The number of people buying food and household items online grew an average 30% worldwide.
Businesses, meanwhile, pivoted to remote work, with a corresponding bump in productivity of 3.1%, according to Goldman Sachs. Companies also sped up digitization of customer and supply-chain operations by three to four years, reports McKinsey & Company.
See: Lobbying: it’s high time startups up their game
Investors surged into these and other opportunities. In the first half of 2020 venture funding worldwide was $148 billion. In the first half of 2021 it had soared 95% to $288 billion, with increases at every stage, according to Crunchbase. Startups also are benefiting from new investment channels, including democratizing startups like Robinhood; crowdfunding; and special purchase acquisition companies. (Although some increasingly are skeptical of SPACs.)
The term “unicorn”—an indicator of extreme rarity—is becoming a misnomer. As of August there were more than 800 startups around the world with valuations above $1billion, for a cumulative valuation in excess of $2.6 trillion, according to CB Insights. Just between October 2020 and June 2021 their number rose 43%. Although U.S. companies dominated, China, Canada, India, Germany, Israel, the United Kingdom, and France produced between 7 and 10 unicorns in the first half of 2021, according to Crunchbase. Meanwhile, VC-backed exits are smoking hot. Startup Genome’s data show a 20% year-over-year growth in the dollar value of exits in startups globally.
For entrepreneurial ecosystems, 2021 is turning out to be a year of remarkable growth and productivity. And the dispersal of success—already underway before the pandemic—has only accelerated.
Read: From Global Leader to Follower, is Canada losing its FinTech edge?
Key Insights
- Despite a turbulent year for many, the top five global startup ecosystems maintain their reign at the top, with Silicon Valley in the #1 position, followed by New York City and London tied for #2 for the second year in a row. Beijing and Boston follow at #4 and #5, respectively.
- North America continues to dominate the Global Rankings, with 50% of the Top 30 ecosystems coming from this region, followed by Asia with 27% and Europe with 17% of the top performing ecosystems globally.
- The global startup economy is worth over $3.8 trillion in Ecosystem Value, more than the individual GDP of most G7 economies, not including the value of exits prior to 2018.
- There are now 79 ecosystems generating over $4 billion in value which is more than double the number identified in 2017.
- 91 ecosystems created unicorns in 2020.
Read and Download the Report --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Canadian Women in VC – 3rd Annual Compensation Survey (Deadline Oct 11)
Canadian Women in VC | Sep 28, 2021
The 3rd Annual Canadian Venture Capital Compensation Survey is open for participation!
Over the past 2 years, your participation has helped shine a light on wage standards and discrepancies and facilitated confident conversations and raises across venture capital funds in Canada.
Did you know that:
- Except at the entry-level, men tend to earn more than women in investment roles by 9% and 26% at mid and senior-level roles, respectively.
- Further education has inconsistent effects on salary, indicating that the industry is open to individuals irrespective of their background.
Your participation this year will inform a 2021 Benchmark Report that will be produced by Canadian Women in VC in mid-November.
The deadline to participate is COB on October 11th.
Access the survey HERE --> https://bit.ly/3igS5NF
See:
Why is venture capital still ignoring women? The case for investing is clear.
Women In Fintech Will Play A Crucial Part In The Covid-19 Recovery Plan
Culture: Why regulators should care about diversity and inclusion
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Cost-effective way to Boost Customer Satisfaction
Wharton | Sep 20, 2021
When customers feel satisfied, they spend more money and are more likely to come back. Happy customers write positive reviews online and share their experiences through word of mouth. But great customer service is also really hard. Shoppers complain that sales associates aren’t listening to them or are just going through the motions. There is a simple and cost-effective way to fix that, and Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger has new research that explains how. He found that when sales agents use concrete language, they make customers feel seen, heard, and valued. His paper with co-author Grant Packard, a marketing professor at York University’s Schulich School of Business, is titled “How Concrete Language Shapes Customer Satisfaction.”
Knowledge@Wharton: Did you find that [something as simple as words agents used make customers more satisfied?]?
Berger: We did. We found that a certain type of language improves customer satisfaction. It doesn’t just make people happier, it causes them to be more likely to come back and buy more in the future. This linguistic feature is called “concreteness,” basically how concrete the language is that people use. Sometimes we speak in a more abstract way, and sometimes we speak in a more concrete way. We found speaking more concretely, using more concrete language in a variety of customer service or sales interactions, can not only make the customer more satisfied, but also make them more likely to buy in the future.
See:
Huawei CFO, U.S. reach agreement to resolve bank fraud charges
Fintechs must ‘sell simplicity’ to carve out competitive advantage
From Investment Hunter to Investor’s Prey
Culture and Diversity Leadership: Tale of Two Doors
Knowledge@Wharton: There has been exponential growth in online shopping, especially in the last 18 months, and online customers are going by the descriptions of the products. Should companies be using more concrete language in how they write these descriptions?
“The idea of something being concrete is you can see it, touch it, or feel it. You can experience it.”
Berger: Certainly. Whether we’re talking about online sales interactions and product descriptions, whether we’re talking about written content online, people are more likely to continue reading because they can understand what’s going on. Even in the “help” pages of a website, more concrete language makes you feel like the page is more helpful because it makes it easier to understand. Concrete language can be a great and relatively easy way to improve customer behavior or consumer behavior on a variety of dimensions.
Knowledge@Wharton: Your research often focuses on the psychological and semantic components of marketing. What are you going to bring us next?
Berger: If we’re talking and I pause for a second, you tend to go, “Uh-huh,” because it’s a natural thing to do. You tend to agree with someone when they’re speaking. It’s the polite thing to do. What we find is that the more the customer service agent pauses in these interactions, the more they give customers an opportunity to assent, to agree, to say, “Uh-huh, yeah, uh-huh.” A lot of research shows that assenting improves liking and interactions, so we find higher customer satisfaction for pauses in social interaction.
“Whether we’re trying to sell something or we’re talking to our spouse, people like being listened to.”
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Canada’s Library of Parliament Report: A Comparison of Open Banking Recommendations
Senator Colin Deacon | Sep 27, 2021
On June 19th, 2019, the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce (Senate Banking Committee) released the report, Open Banking: What it Means for You, Following the release of this report, Senators Colin Deacon and Howard Wetston continued to invest a considerable amount of time advancing the issue of open banking. Their ongoing efforts reflect the Senate Banking Committee’s unanimous view that Canada should urgently develop and implement an open banking framework.
More than two years later, on August 4th, 2021, the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, released the Advisory Committee on Open Banking (Advisory Committee)’s April 2021 Final Report.
See: FFCON21 On-Demand with Seanator Colin Deacon: Inclusive Banking and Affordable Credit
Following a request from Senator Wetston, recent chair of the Senate Banking Committee, the Library of Parliament completed a side-by-side comparison between the 10 recommendations made by the Senate Banking Committee and the 34 recommendations made by the Advisory Committee.
The comparison identified that the Advisory Committee’s report contains additional, more detailed recommendations than those outlined in the Senate Banking Committee’s report, but that they did not differ in terms of direction or intent. It is reasonable to conclude that additional insight was garnered due to the Advisory Committee’s second round of consultations, the rapidly accelerating global experience in open banking, and the increasing attention to the topic in Canada.
Continue to the full article --> here
Download the 9 page PDF report: 'A Comparison of Open Banking Recommendations' --> Here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Crypto fraud and breaches on pace to exceed $3 billion in 2021
The Fintech Times | | Sep 9, 2021
As cryptocurrency has grown in popularity, crypto-related crimes have also been on the rise as Crypto Head showcased in its Crypto Crimes report earlier this year, which found that in 2020 there were 8,801 crypto crime reports to the UK action fraud team.
This was a 24% increase from 2019, where 7,121 reports were filed. Prior to this, crypto crime reports in the UK had been growing exponentially. Between 2017 and 2018 there was a 355% surge in crypto-related crime, as there were over 5,000 more reports in one year alone.
In particular, the number of exchanges and currencies that are being targeted by hackers stealing coins has increased, as many crypto and blockchain technologies are still in their infancy so they can be more easily exploited. 8,131 of the crypto crimes reported to the UK action fraud team were related to Bitcoin crimes.
So, how have the number of crypto breaches and fraud offences changed over the last decade, which have been the biggest, and how do they vary between different countries and currencies?
See: CipherTrace August 2021 Crypto Crime Report: Crypto Fraud Dips as DeFi Hacks Grow
The largest crypto breach and fraud to date was the OneCoin Ponzi scheme ($4 billion), which was promoted as a new cryptocurrency and has been dubbed one of the biggest scams of all time. The founder, Ruja Ignatova, disappeared in 2017 and has yet to be found, although many others have been arrested in connection with the scheme and US authorities state that the scheme defrauded investors of $4billion.
Crypto breaches and fraud has increased significantly. Between 2011 and 2021 there have been 208 notable crypto offences, with a total of $19.2billion being stolen in that time. In 2011 there were nine offences, with over $9million being taken, but this number had almost doubled by 2013 and grew to as many as 38 in 2020 and 32 so far in 2021, showing how rapidly offences are increasing. While 2021 looks set to be the year with the highest number of offences, 2017 was the year that saw hackers make the most money, stealing highs of $4.7billion in total and $223.5million on average.
As hackers and their technology become more sophisticated, it’s clear that breaches are an increasingly big concern for the crypto world.
Image: Crypto Head / The Fintech Times
The most common types of crypto offence is breaches of wallets and exchanges, with 126 in the last ten years, which is far more than offences involving DeFi attacks and fraud (both 41). The largest of these breaches to date saw Mt. Gox have $615million stolen over the years, leading to the platform ultimately becoming insolvent in 2014.
See: InsurAce Founder at DeFi Insurance Protocol Explains the Difference between Traditional and Decentralized Insurance
However, it was cases of fraud that were the most lucrative for criminals, usually seeing the perpetrators walk away with big sums. The average crypto fraud incident saw $365million stolen (over 14 times as much as breaches), while just under $15billion has been stolen in total via fraud since 2011. However, the number of DeFi (decentralised finance) breaches is on the increase, with this new technology more open to potential weaknesses.
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Hedera Hashgraph beats DLT competitors on energy consumption
Finextra | Sep 8, 2021
A research report by University College London (UCL) has examined the varying environmental impacts of six different distributed ledger technologies (DLT), finding that Hedera Hashgraph boasts the lowest overall energy consumption of the group.
Algorand, Cardano, Ethereum 2.0, Hedera Hashgraph, Polkadot, and Tezos were compared, with researchers from UCL’s Centre for Blockchain Technologies (ULC CBT) considering how second-generation consensus models such as Proof-of-Stake perform when compared with their predecessors (such as Proof-of-Work).
Read: The London Hard Fork is a big step towards Ethereum 2.0’s major upgrade
Dr. Paolo Tasca, executive director at UCL CBT explained: “At this point, the benefits of Proof-of-Stake are well-recognised and understood in the blockchain space.
However, through this research we have found that not all Proof-of-Stake networks are created equally.
By formalising a “basic mathematical consumption model for validator-based Sybil attack resistance schemes,” the energy consumption per transaction based on common input variables could be quantified. The study ultimately discovered that the energy needs of (varying) consensus protocols is dependent on the number of active validators.
As the scale of DLT networks increase, the report concludes that networks must remain focused on environmental friendliness. The quality of hardware used by node operators and the effect of different design choices within DLT architecture must be considered through the lens of the environmental impact they can incur.
See:
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How blockchain and cryptocurrencies can help build a greener future
-
The Carbon Footprint of Cryptocurrency
“In this paper, we tested this hypothesis using a mathematical consumption model that predicts expected energy consumption per transaction, as a function of network load. Applying this model to six different PoS-based DLT systems supports the hypothesis and suggests that their energy consumption per transaction is indeed at least two to three orders of magnitude lower than that of Bitcoin.
“Furthermore, we discover significant differences among the analysed PoS-based systems themselves. Here, a permissioned system was found to consume significantly less energy per transaction than permissionless systems. This difference could be attributed to gatekeeping capabilities offered by permissioned systems.”
Continue to the full article --> here
Download the 14 page discussion paper 'Energy Footprint of Blockchain Consensus Mechanisms
Beyond Proof-of-Work' --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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“It’s absolutely mad if you think about it” — the need to rethink what we value
MaRS | Molly Shoichet | Sep 8, 2021
Health innovation has been the story of COVID, but economist Mariana Mazzucato says we’re still not doing it right. We need to redesign procurement, rethink old narratives and reassess the value of public investment.
Mariana Mazzucato is one of the world’s most influential economists — professor at University College London, founder of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose and author of books rejecting business’s monopoly on risk-taking and value creation.
Molly Shoichet: The COVID economy has had an outsized impact on women and racialized communities. What is the connection between public health and a healthy economy?
Mariana Mazzucato: We hear it’s important to invest in health, it’s good for the economy. But in my work as chair of the World Health Organization’s Council on the Economics of Health for All, we want to determine the actual goal we’re trying to achieve.
COVID-19 has woken us up to the fact that we don’t have health for everybody. It’s not enough to have a vaccine if not everyone has access to it. So, if our ambition is health for all, how do we set up our economy? Outcomes-oriented budgeting? Procurement processes and budgets?
See: Why a shift to Impact Investing will create big winners and big losers
So, the connection between health and the economy has to be about creating stronger health systems. But it also has to be about how we structure the economy to deliver on our goals, including the nitty gritty of tool design.
Shoichet: How can we ensure vaccines are equitably available around the world?
Mazzucato: I think we need to really question whether vaccines should be produced in a for-profit model.
With the pandemic, unless vaccines are available to everyone, we’re all going to remain unsafe. Otherwise we have vaccine apartheid, as WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus calls it.
There is this idea of having a patent pool — we have to rely less on voluntary charity. Governments and philanthropies can also use prizes to encourage certain types of inventions. We don’t just have to rely on patents and pricing, especially in an area with such a strong “public good” dimension.
Read: Getting tangible about intangibles: The future of growth and productivity?
There’s also the concept of collective intelligence. One example is the “people’s vaccine” concept promoted by the Costa Rican government and others. And there are people like Dr. Tedros who are asking how we share knowledge, how we construct collective intelligence about tools and therapies in a pandemic, how to structure public-private partnerships.
Shoichet: Societal value is increasingly equated with financial value. How do initiatives like value-based care help create new frameworks that will truly help people?
Mazzucato:
In a system that confuses price with value — the thesis of The Value of Everything — we assume that just because someone is paid a lot, they are more valuable.
This is why Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, had the guts to say after the financial crisis that his workers were among the most productive in the world. We laugh at that, but in a way, he was right. Because when we look at productivity in terms of output per labour, we don’t know how to value the output of public health workers. Their output might end up being free to the consumer, so we can only put a number on their inputs.
Also: Financial data unbound: The value of open data for individuals and institutions
We must value the work of women, caregivers, public health workers, school teachers, in such a way that validates them and the value of their labour. It goes beyond their incomes to the value of the output. GDP doesn’t include the value of a well-structured public education or health system because it’s free. It’s absolutely mad if you think about it. We currently just look at the cost of the teachers or the nurses.
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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