The 7 Best Student Countries In Europe For Founding Your Startup

These are the best cities for starting out. There are many accelerators, incubators and other startup mentorship programmes. Many have already realised that starting as a student has many perks that come with the job!

Sweden

• Lund University’s venture lab offers support and guidance with your idea.
• Gothenburg’s VentureCup Student Startup Nights offer a great opportunity to connect with other founders and get great advice.
• Stockholm School of Economics has its own accelerator for students (check it out here). 
• Stockholm University also offers an incubator for innovative ideas.

Also check out our Stockholm City Guide!

United Kingdom

• Manchester: Manchester University’s own hackathon for students to come up with great new solutions and projects.
• London: The International Students Innovation Award looks for the best new startups by students, more info here.
• University College London offers a student startup program for mentorship from professors. 

Denmark

• Danish Incubator ‘Thinkubator’ has great incubator programmes for students, which have produced some great new startups over the past years.
• The University Worldcup by Venture Cup is a competition and mentoring program for student startups who want mentoring but do not want to miss out on the competitive edge of a ‘worldcup of startups’!
• Aarhus University also has its own student ‘helpcenter’ for entrepreneurship, find out more here. 

The Copenhagen City Guide of course you can find here.

Germany

• The Technical University of Munich supports and advises students with their business ideas with many successful new startups now coming from there!
• Berlin has caused quite a stir at the startup scene. It is now considered one of the best cities for founding a startup. Here are two of its most prominent student startup organisations: Start Berlin and Startup Camp Berlin.

Poland

• Growth! is an accelerator especially aimed at students (have a look here). 
• Startup Poland is a great tool for connecting with other startups and finding your community.

Also make sure to check out the Warsaw city guide for startups for more information on Warsaw as a startup city.

Portugal

• Digistart supports and connects student startups in Lisbon, Malmö and London and offers lots of online tools and resources.
• NOVA University in Lisbon also offers a course, Starters Academy to make sure their students get the best advice and mentorship during the first steps of their startup.

Czech Republic

• StartupYard is a great accelerator program for students looking for mentorship and connections to other startups in Prague.
• The Prague Startup Centre is also a great place for student early starters! Learn more here.

Don’t forget to have a look at our city guide!

Inter-Europe Student Organisations:

These are becoming ever more important for students. They are useful tools for startup communities and often act as platforms for connecting startups with each other and fostering overall productivity and growth. Competitions held by these inter-Europe organisations are also a great way for startups to measure up, contrast and compare and ultimately grow!

• Yes for Europe offers events all around Europe for budding student entrepreneurs.
• Social Impact Award in Austria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia and Switzerland. SIA encourages students to develop businesses in the social sector and awards the best one each year.
• Jade is a Europe-wide network to connect junior enterprises.
• Climate Launchpad is a competition for clean startups and also offer coaching leading up to the final pitching contest.
• NACUE organises the biggest student startup conference in Europe. It also offers accelerators and online startup support.
• StartupClub is a great resource for connecting startup students across Europe with a series of events organised every year.

Think we missed some? Let us know!

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