Many companies on the list are not startups, to name a few: skype, mysql, spil games, unity and rovio.

True, I used the term loosely, perhaps I should have said "tech companies founded by Europeans"

cool idea, but I can think of plenty of startups not listed

I know, you're right, but I thought I'd start with the ones I knew about and then let founders add their own startups to the list.

Your signup form doesn't work; asks for the Recaptcha API key.

Thanks, I've taken care of this bug.

Is there a law against them in France?

No, but there is some bureaucracy. Not so much taxes as much as being able to make sure not to pay things you don't have to. I have done internships in some companies where they did not realize they could recover a lot of taxes, etc... if they had filled the forms.

But I actually think the most significant issue is the culture, especially the whole higher education system, the so called "grandes ecoles", which could be somewhat compared to the Ivy league in the US. The incentive to go into big companies is huge, and there is also relatively poor consideration for IT jobs. I also think failure has more impact in your career than in the US/UK. Not so much failure itself as much as unusual careers.

I should note that I am highly biased against this system. I went through it like most students "who are good at math", and I hated it. The engineering education you receive compared to what you can expect in good engineering universities in the US is terrible.

There's a few near the Belgian border -- but yes, France is, in general, not the startup-friendliest country in the world. Comparing with the UK, it might just be network effects, but I'm not convinced that's all of it.

Additionally (disclaimer, I'm Belgian), I would not start in France because of the fear of future laws. They seem to be pulling a lot of crap -- I don't really know if it's because they're clueless or malicious, but either way I'm not putting up with it.

Could also be a self-selection effect. It is far from certain that non-Anglophone startups are just as likely as Anglophone startups to enter themselves on an English website.

Don't get me wrong, this is evidence, but it is fragile and problematic.

Hardly. Here in Sophia-Antipolis, there are at least two dozen.

For a global overview of startup locations you can also take a look at http://startup-map.datalysed.com

Thanks for the link. Good idea to group the startups by area, this solves the marker overlapping problem. Does it only display the number of startups or can you also list startup details?

very interesting. Is there a way to find the company names and addresses?

Interesting. Quite a few venture capital firms nearby (Cologne), but I don't see any actual startups until I zoom our far enough to see the startups in other countries. (and one in Karlsruhe).

Wonder what that means.

I also wonder why it places Spotify out in the forest, when their official information places them in Stockholm (Sweden's capital).

You're right, Spotify's location was Stockholm, but the map automatically displayed it in Stockholm county. Thanks for noticing this, I'll correct the error.

Yes, it's a problem with the markers overlapping, I'm still looking for a solution to it.

See http://www.appelsiini.net/2008/11/introduction-to-marker-clu...

Interesting post, thanks for the link.

Oh. I thought it meant something like Germany is a great place to get venture capital but not such a great place to start a startup.

:)) Oh no, it's not that smart! :P

Wow, thanks for this one. Until now, I didn't even know there were any angel investors in my country. Now that I know there are... well, I might just try my luck with this whole startup thing :).

What country is that? It's great to know it's useful, there are still a lot of investment funds to be added, so it might be even better than you think. ;) Best of luck with "this whole startup thing" if you decide to try it! :)

Polldaddy came from Ireland? Cool, I didn't know that. Surely there are loads more to be added though, right?

Oh yes, there are tons, but I thought the YC community is a good place to collect more startup info :)

Cool map. But please remember we don't use Euros in Sweden the UK, the Ukraine.

Thanks. I know, but the map is not just about the countries using Euro, it's about all countries within Europe's geographical boundaries.