Reforms for startups seem really promising

Digital services Innovation Skills supply

IT&Telecom companies have long highlighted the need to more actively support new, knowledge-intensive companies, not least so that they can afford to hire and retain their skills. Although many Swedish digital start-ups have obviously done well, this has perhaps been more in spite of the rules than because of them.

So is this it? The government has today announced that they will:

  • fast track the tax rates on employee stock options
  • review how state venture capital can be adapted to start-ups
  • simplify the work permit process for recruiting specialists from outside the EU
  • broaden its consultation process in the future to better capture the views of small and start-up businesses.

The laudable Swedish Startup Manifesto seems to have made a big impression on the Minister for Enterprise. As, hopefully, will our input on what is needed for digital service companies to flourish in Sweden.

The ability to recruit key staff (and just as importantly, to afford to keep them) and enough capital to stay afloat in the first critical period is crucial for the survival of start-ups. Therefore, there is every reason to praise the government's ambitions. They feel much more realistic, pro-market and promising than cries for the next [any turn-of-the-century industrial group].

Good to see a forward-looking industrial policy!