FT ranking: Europe’s leading start-up hubs 2026
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
This ranking of Europe’s leading start-up hubs, now in its third year, recognises the top centres providing programmes to help people build or grow a company.
Germany is home to the top three hubs in the 2026 list. In first place is Munich-based UnternehmerTUM for the third year running. Founded in 2002, it has incubated more than 1,000 companies.
Start2 Group, also in Munich, takes second place, with its strong international presence across 18 countries. BayStartUP in Nuremberg, which comes third, stands out for its consistent track record in connecting early-stage founders with financing opportunities across Bavaria.
This year’s list covers 180 hubs in 25 countries across Europe. UK, Germany and Spain were home to the most winners overall.
To create the ranking the FT co-operated with the data and research company Statista as well as Sifted, the FT-backed media start-up that covers European tech.
To qualify, hubs had to have been operating since at least 2021, maintain a physical location in Europe and run at least one incubation or acceleration programme.
The views of investors, entrepreneurs and academics were taken into account along with the success of “graduates” of these hubs. Alumni were asked to assess how well the hubs provided mentoring and training, infrastructure, legal assistance and networking and funding opportunities.
A more detailed methodology can be found below the tables.
The full report including articles about European start-ups will be published in print and online on March 5.
Methodology
Europe’s Leading Start-Up Hubs 2026, in its third edition, is a ranking of the top centres offering incubator and/or accelerator programmes to people who want to build or grow a company. Requiring at least one physical location within Europe, these centres are called start-up hubs. In total, 180 such hubs were recognised in this ranking.
The Financial Times co-operated with the international data and research company Statista as well as Sifted, the FT-backed media start-up that covers European tech.
To identify the leading hubs, a two-phase application and evaluation process was conducted. Several elements were considered, with the main criterion being the assessment by alumni who participated in at least one programme run by the respective hub. In addition, the recommendations of external experts, such as investors (business angels, representatives of venture capital firms), entrepreneurs and academics were included. On top of that, the most successful start-ups coming out of a hub were examined.
Phase 1: Start-up hubs application phase
Start-up hubs were actively invited to register, via announcement articles published on FT.com and Sifted.eu, followed by emails and calls from a team of researchers provided by Statista as well as via newsletters and ads sent out by Sifted.
The online registration phase ran from May 27 to August 15, 2025.
A start-up hub had to meet the following criteria to be eligible for consideration:
Physical location in Europe¹
Offer at least one incubation or acceleration programme
Have been in operation since at least 2021
Phase 2: The alumni evaluation phase
Once a hub registered and provided all the required information on its programmes, offers and track-record, alumni which participated in such programmes between 2019 and 2024 were asked to evaluate their experience.
The alumni were asked to evaluate the programmes in the following areas:
Mentoring & training
Infrastructure
Legal assistance
Business development advice
Networking opportunities
Funding opportunities
Alumni were also asked to what extent they would recommend their hub on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the best score. Furthermore, questions on the application process, cost (fees or equity taken) and the ex-post support were asked.
Phase 3: Survey and data evaluation & analysis
For each area evaluated by the alumni through multiple questions and the overall recommendation, an average score was calculated (=alumni score). For hubs participating for the second year, past alumni evaluations were also considered after performing eligibility and duplicate checks.
In parallel to the registration and alumni evaluation period, start-up investors and seasoned entrepreneurs were asked to evaluate start-up hubs they know on a scale from 0 to 10 (=expert score).
Information requested from hubs themselves about the top five start-ups which participated in one of their programmes was collected and evaluated (=track record score).
The overall score for a start-up hub was calculated as a weighted average of the alumni score (overall recommendation and evaluation of subdimensions), the expert score and the track record score.
Quality assurance
All survey data (start-up hubs registrations, alumni evaluations and experts’ recommendations) has been processed and checked by Statista.
Disclaimer
The selection of the start-up hubs and the definition of the evaluation criteria were carried out according to independent criteria of the Financial Times and Statista. The ranking was created through a complex procedure. Although the research was very extensive, the ranking does not claim to be complete, as some start-up hubs did not want to participate or did not receive a sufficient amount of alumni evaluations to be included in the ranking.
The ranking is comprised exclusively of start-up hubs that are eligible regarding the criteria described in this methodology. A position in the ranking is a positive recognition based on the information provided through the respective survey and the data collected.
The survey and the analysis phase ran from May to October 2025. Data published after that time and events following November 7, 2025, were not included in the metrics. As such, the results of this ranking should not be used as the sole source of information for future deliberations. The information provided in this ranking should be considered in conjunction with other available information.
The quality of start-up hubs that are not included in the ranking is not disputed.
1 The start-up hub must be based in one of the following countries: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom.
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