200 new blockchain startups in 6 weeks
Since launching the Blockchain Angel Startup Tracker in May, we have added 967 blockchain startups to the tracker. In just six weeks, we’ve added 200 new startups to the tracker! Thanks to the community for their help. To achieve inclusion in the top 1,000 startups by the end of July, please make sure your company is listed in this tracker ( http://www.blockchainangels.eu/startups/charts/ ). After the launch, we sought feedback from investors, startups, incubators, and the media to guide our product development. The most common feedback we received was that the tracker lacked geographic location information for startups. Therefore, we decided to mark the country and region information of all 967 startups in the tracker. Five major trends in the blockchain ecosystem 1. Ranking of the number of blockchain startups in the world: the UK is second only to the US As expected, the United States dominates the blockchain market, with 38.9% of blockchain startups registered and located in the United States. The second country is the United Kingdom, with 16.7% of blockchain companies in the United Kingdom. The impact of Brexit on the blockchain industry is worth studying. Early feedback shows that investors believe that the weakening of the pound will be an opportunity for blockchain, but less likely to cause panic. Canada ranks third with 3.3% of blockchain startups, China ranks fourth with 3.2% , Singapore ranks fifth with 2.6%, and Germany and Israel are tied for sixth with 2.5%. 2. The United States is more inclined towards Bitcoin When you dig deeper into these startups, you'll find that each country has a slightly different bias. The United States has invested a lot of money in Bitcoin projects, and a large number of companies and products are centered around the Bitcoin blockchain. With the culture already established, it's actually very difficult for these companies to explore alternative blockchains. This also explains why some Ethereum startups are headquartered in Europe, especially in the UK and Germany. 3. London is the center of the blockchain financial scene There is no doubt that the UK is very serious about the application of blockchain in the field of financial technology. We found that of the 115 known UK companies, many of the products they have built are centered around settlement, clearing, insurance, and financial transactions. 4. The clustering effect of blockchain applications is limited With the exception of London and financial services, the data from the survey does not show that startups in the same country are concentrated on solving a certain type of problem. For example, applications such as supply chain and logistics are being explored by startups around the world, including Israel, Singapore, Italy, and the United States. Most startups researching blockchain IoT applications are headquartered in Kenya, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Similarly, the application directions of each country are also diverse. There are two possible reasons why regional clusters have not yet appeared: the market is still too new and clusters will emerge further, or because of the emergence of the Internet, the zero marginal cost of communication and distribution has made blockchain clusters much more difficult. Does this mean the end of clustering? Clustering occurs when companies in the same industry come together to benefit from economies of scale. Clustered companies benefit from a shared pool of talent, expertise, suppliers, and customers. Modern technology industry clusters often occur around universities, with Silicon Valley benefiting greatly from its proximity to Stanford University. However, blockchain, distributed systems, and cryptography courses are still a niche in universities. Most blockchain talent has so far come from the hacker community. Will clusters appear? In the next few years, we will probably see clusters emerge. Berlin focuses on decentralized technology, Tel Aviv on security, Singapore on supply chain, London on insurance. Finance is now highly regulated, and companies that engage in lending need a national license. This means that blockchain startups need financing, and they need to be close to venture capitalists and angel investors. This is why Silicon Valley, New York, London, Berlin and Singapore are attractive to blockchain startups. Clusters still make sense in the digital world, precisely because of finance (especially venture capital). However, we have also recognized the DAO, and some of the things that will appear next may bring us some surprises. 5. Region may no longer matter While conducting this micro-survey, we discovered a larger trend. Not only is the regional clustering very small, but the distribution of employees in blockchain startups is also very small. 28% of the startups do not have a so-called "headquarters", that is, companies that use decentralized technology to build products are also distributed and scattered all over the world. We often see that members of a blockchain company are from London, Thailand, Warsaw and Madrid. Are blockchain startups borderless? Wherever my laptop is, there is my home. (As long as there is coffee) 50 years ago, a company needed to be registered, pay taxes, and have workers, who had to perform all operations in the same country. However, for blockchain companies, their employees and customers can come from different countries. Many blockchain startups raise funds through Bitcoin or Ethereum, and even use them to pay developers' salaries. For blockchain startups, the boundaries between countries are becoming less and less important.
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