sTARTUp Tartu is a community driven initiative to provide real time, online and offline connection between members of the tech and startup community in Tartu, Estonia. As part of the Estonian startup ecosystem we find that startups are key to fostering innovation, creating high-value jobs and companies, and boosting the local economy.

There are four Estonian unicorns - Transferwise, Bolt, Skype and Playtech, with several companies to be added to the list over the following years. The sector is growing by 30% every year and every 99th person is involved with startups. The success of the tech and startup ecosystem comes from the advancements of the Estonian digital society, high development standards and the international ambition of local founders.

Tartu, the city of good thoughts, is mostly known as a university town. University of Tartu is a TOP 1% university in international rankings, providing a pool of highly qualified talent and ideas that evolve into startups with a range of incubation, acceleration and mentoring programs. Roughly 15% of Estonian startups are located in Tartu and around 25 international tech companies have their development centres located here. You can find a database of local tech companies at startuptartu.ee

sTARTUp Tartu is a non-profit initiative run by incubators, a university, the private sector and the public sector with a focus on the startup mindset and entrepreneurial values. Our goal is to drive innovation and economic development in the region through startups. The branding for this initiative came from the name of the city of Tartu, which is in the middle of the word “startup”.

Today, our activities include:

· Organising events and activities to build the community;

· Carrying out training programs for startups and support organisations to help them achieve their business goals;

· Creating networking opportunities inside the ecosystem for startups (both founders and employees), investors, mentors, talent, public sector and corporates;

· Offering a centralized application process to incubation and acceleration programs in Tartu.

You can find out more details about the sTARTUp Tartu community on our webpage www.startuptartu.ee and keep yourself connected via our Facebook page @sTARTUpTartu.