$B+ club per capita unchanged The emergence of billion-dollar companies is a simple but useful measure of startup success. It is also an in- dicator of a country’s ability to foster innovation and create a supportive environment for the development of high-growth startups and is therefore a way to benchmark progress, especially if normalised on a per capita basis to adjust for the different scale of country populations. On this measure, as it has done for years, Estonia continues to stand out as the leader in billion-dollar compa- ny density, with 4.5 companies valued at over $1B per every one million inhabitants. Bene昀椀tting from the early success of Skype, many former employees have since used that experience to spin out their own companies. Some of the most prominent examples include Wise and Bolt, both now billion-dollar companies in their own right. Of course, a small population can help boost per capita measures. Similarly to Estonia, other smaller coun- tries such as Sweden (2.4 unicorns per 1M inhabitants), Malta (2.0), and Norway (2.1) are all punching above their weight. Nevertheless, the UK’s strong startup scene is re昀氀ected in the amount of $B+ companies per capita too, ranking way above the European average of 0.9 with 1.4 unicorns per 1M residents. 123 | Companies