Despite a population of just 1.3m, Estonia is emerging as a tech powerhouse in Europe, earning comparisons to Silicon Valley. In 2022, Estonian startups raised more than €1.3bn and around 100 new startups were created, taking the country’s total to approximately 1,500.
Ten of those are now unicorns — including Skype, Estonia’s first unicorn, channelless customer interaction platform Glia and mobility company Bolt — and Estonia has more unicorns per capita than any other country in Europe.
The growing industry and supportive policies, like the startup and scaleup visa, e-residency programme and the digital nomad visa, are making Estonia an attractive destination for global tech talent — and for founders.
So what do you need to know before moving to Estonia? We asked the experts.
An evolving ecosystem
“We have a tight tech community in Estonia,” Sandra Särav, deputy secretary general of business environment and consumer affairs at Estonia’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, tells Sifted. “All the founders know one another — but if you don't know each other personally, you’re usually only one contact away.
“I can say this is thanks to Skype: some of the generation that started at Skype early on later built their own unicorns at Bolt or Pipedrive, for example. Now, people from Bolt and Pipedrive are building their own companies too, so we're looking at multiple generations of companies being built thanks to Skype being developed in Estonia.”
So many people who have worked for Skype have moved to other startups and have shared this experience and expanded it across the country
Leelia Rohumaa is director of people operations at Glia. Rohumaa has worked at three unicorns in total — Skype, Pipedrive and now Glia — and believes after its launch in 2003, Skype quickly brought a wealth of knowledge and capital to Estonia, and a lot of people who were involved with Skype went on to create their own startups.
“So many people who have worked for Skype have moved to other startups and have shared this experience and expanded it across the country. The knowledge and the capital has stayed in the ecosystem. Today we see more foreign founders coming to Estonia.”
👉 Read: Europe's most popular digital nomad destinations
In addition to the Estonian Founders Society, there are a lot of communities in Estonia supporting startups, like accelerators, hackathons and incubators.
“A lot of people are mentoring new startups and providing their time and capital to support the ecosystem,” Rohumaa says. “This kind of sharing is really great to see — people are happy to mentor one-on-one or be part of the conferences and share their experience and knowledge.”
Going digital
In August 2020, Estonia became the first country to offer a digital nomad visa, a one-year visa for those interested in working in Estonia remotely. Applicants are required to do their daily job online and should not be employed by an Estonian company. They also must earn at least €4,500 per month, although this is currently under review to potentially be reduced.
It's so great to see that Estonia has become the Silicon Valley of Europe
“To apply for the visa, it’s a simple online procedure,” says Särav. “You cannot be from the EU or the Schengen area because this is for third-country nationals, and the top interest we have is from North America. After applying, you will hear back within 30 days.”
Särav calls Estonia an advanced digital society, saying everything from tax declarations to providing digital signatures when applying for support and subsidies can be done completely online.
“It's so great to see that Estonia has become the Silicon Valley of Europe and that the country is now more and more known,” says Rohumaa. “It is the trailblazer in e-governance — we are very proud of our public services being 99% available online.”
In addition to the visa, according to Särav, Estonia offers a range of support programmes for entrepreneurs, such as the e-Residency. E-Residency is a digital status and it doesn't give you the right to physically go to Estonia, but it does give you access to all online services in the country, meaning those with the status can open up a company fully online.
“Let's say you're a digital nomad in Estonia but you don't want to live in Estonia forever,” says Särav. “You can apply for e-Residency and open up your company while living in the Bahamas, for example, but still be a digital Estonian in the sense that you are capable of doing everything online such as interacting with the government and managing your company.”
Currently Särav says Estonia has had over 100k positive e-Residency applicants who have founded nearly 25k companies.
Best of both worlds
In addition to its growing tech scene, Estonia is home to 2,222 islands, and Tallinn is the “European Green Capital 2023”, with the fifth-cleanest air of any city in the world.
“Estonia is a perfect place to find the balance between tech and nature,” says Rohumaa. “It’s unique that in Tallinn, there is a lot going on, including a lot of options for remote work via co-working spaces, and then at the same time, you can go out of the city and enjoy the beautiful nature of Estonia in 30 minutes, while still staying connected.”
During her career at three unicorns, Rohumaa has seen Estonia evolve as a hotspot to visit, do business with and even move to.
“People from even more countries want to come to Estonia because there are so many different communities and cultures, ways of connecting with people from your home country, and you can get done almost everything in English — so it's easy to live here even if you don't know the local language.”
Estonia is a perfect place to find the balance between tech and nature
There are currently 10k people working in startups in Estonia, and Särav expects this to grow to 50k within a decade. She believes trends will play a big part in the ecosystem’s continued growth: startups in the transport and logistics and fintech spaces are currently amongst the biggest taxpayers, but the cleantech space is growing too.
“We expect to see a massive increase in the number of startups here and thanks to our hassle-free lifestyle, people are realising where Estonia is and what it offers,” Särav says.
“What we need to figure out is how to bring in more talent. Currently, a digital nomad is someone who's a long-term tourist coming to Estonia and still building their own businesses.
“But I would like to build the next steps for digital nomads — if they like it here, how can they become residents or be employed by a local startup or unicorn?”
Experience Estonia on a digital nomad visa and unlock the possibilities of e-Residency for seamless business operations. Find more information about Estonia’s digital nomad visa here.
