Elevate Greece: which sectors have the most start-ups

Life sciences lead the Greek innovation ecosystem among the sectors of activity. According to Elevate Greece data presented at an event for the first National Young Entrepreneurship Awards, presented by the Deputy Minister of Development and Investment, Christos Dimas:

In first place is life sciences with 14.1%, followed by tourism with 9.1%, environment with 9.1%, agro-technology with 7.1%, advertising 7%, big data (6%), financial technology (5%), manufacturing (4.3%), e-commerce (4%), shipping and human resources (3% each), entertainment (2.3%), education (2%) and finally there are the other sectors (24%).

Number of employees

In the list concerning the number of workers employed in the innovation ecosystem and especially in start-ups, as the Deputy Minister said, life sciences again dominate with 11%, advertising with 8.3%, e-commerce with 7.4%, big data with 7% and tourism with 6.4%. This is followed by shipping with 4.8%, entertainment with 4.4%, agri-tech, environment and education with 4.3% each, financial technology with 4.1%, manufacturing with 2.2%, human resources with 2.1% and finally there are the other sectors with 29.4%.

«A first safe conclusion is that life sciences dominate the Greek innovation ecosystem. And this is something we want to support. We knew it, we all suspected it, but it is something now that we have official data,» the Deputy Minister stressed.

Percentages of start-ups by region

Particularly revealing are the percentages of start-ups by administrative region in the country. As the Deputy Minister explained, we have the 13 administrative regions of the country and the aggregated data shows that:
- 2 out of 3 start-ups are located in the Region of Attica.
- The Region of Central Macedonia follows with 14.7%.
- Crete with 6,5%.
- And Western Greece with 4.2%.

Mr Dimas explained that the aim is to create more start-ups outside large urban centres. As he said: «The first conclusion from the data, beyond the 0% in the Region of Western Macedonia, especially at a time when de-lignification is dominating the debate, is an issue that has been of concern to us and we have already started discussions with the regional governors and especially with the regional governors in the regions where the rates are too low - they are below 1% - to see how we can together create financial incentives to create more start-ups outside large urban centres.

Let me say that this is not the case in all sectors, because in many cases you need to have academic institutions there, but in some cases I will tell you that there are better conditions.».