I knew Estonia was leading the world in terms of their attitude to and adoption of technology. They will be the first country enable electronic-citizens (video) and have huge tech start-up success stories such as Skype (sold to e-bay in 2005 for $2.6b) and more recently TransferWise (raising $25m in June and adding Richard Branson as an investor). But looking more closely, I soon realised how other factors highlighted a strong case for investment.
The 4 key reasons why Estonia is a great place to invest are:
- A positive economy - The country’s economy is predicted to grow by three per cent this year, on a par with the UK and better than both Germany and France.
- New business growth - In 2013, 19,166 new businesses were created in Estonia, a 3% increase over 2012, according to data released by Statistics Estonia and published in Baltic Business News. In fact, the World Bank’s Doing Business ranking predicts that in 2015 Estonia will increase 14% from 40th to 26th place for Starting a Business.
- Start-up ecosystem - With a population of only 1.3m, Estonia has more business start-ups per head that any other country in Europe.
- Positive credit assessment – Additionally in the Doing Business report, Estonia scores highly on their depth of credit information index.
For an opportunity to be an early investor into an Estonian business check out this.
For some more reading around the topic, visit this site.