On the 11th of June of 2014, Melissa Blaustein, our Founder and CEO, came together with 12 national startup associations and formed Allied for Startups. The purpose and objective of the organisation hasn’t changed a bit since our founding days: Bring the voices of startups to governments and institutions around the world, with the ultimate goal of making the world more startup-friendly!
What has changed over the last few years is the different issues we have been working on and how we approach policy makers and the rest of the ecosystem. Since 2015, the team has grown from 1 person to 6, our membership has more than tripled, and we established a high-level Advisory Board which guides Allied for Startups’ activities and strategy. Our public appearances have skyrocketed in the last few years, particularly this last year. Since our founding, we have sent out over 300 newsletters about policy that matters for startups.
Just in 2020 we engaged with over 100 policy makers, submitted 7 policy consultations, drafted 6 policy reports and produced over 150 pieces of our own editorial content. In the last year we also did a little branding upgrade that better suited our needs and style. 2021 is shaping to be another year full of startup victories, with the Startup Nations Standard being launched with our input.
Some of our policy wins have included, the adoption of net neutrality in 2015, the adoption of the open data directive in 2019, which has made more data accessible for startups. Another big highlight was the Free Flow of Data Regulation in 2019, which prohibited unjustified data localisation measures. More recently, we reached many policy makers with our europe💙startups campaign, which transformed into the Rocket Club, a bridge between policy makers and startup entrepreneurs. During the COVID-19 pandemic we advocated to ensure startups can also benefit from State Aid measures and published our 13 recommendations for policy makers. Last year, we launched our DSA4startups campaign, which so far has seen webinars in 6 european capitals with our members. And many more!
We are very proud of the work we have accomplished in the last 7 years so here’s to the next 7 making Europe and the world a place where innovation can thrive!