Romania's capital Bucharest ranked as the tenth most popular city in Europe to build a startup business. In the country, there were 402,428 startup businesses overall from 2015 to 2019, with a large number of startups in the software sector, according to data compiled by Paymentsense, a financial technology company that operates credit card payment services for small and medium-sized businesses.

Most of the Romanian startups were hosted by Bucharest, according to the data.

This places Romania in a group of central and eastern countries (cities) hosting important startup ecosystems: above Hungary (344,772 startups in the period), but below the Czech Republic (464,772).

From 2015 to 2019, there has been a 9.5% growth in the number of startups in Romania - close to the rate seen in the Czech Republic but well inferior to that boasted by Hungary (+39%).

For new startup businesses in Romania, there is a 51.8% survival rate in the first five years, ranking Romania 9th out of 30 countries analysed.

Ranking first is Malta, where businesses have a 78.7% survival rate. In second place is Sweden, with a five-year business survival rate of 60.8%.

(Photo: Daniil Peshkov/ Dreamstime)

andrei@romania-insider.com