What it takes for start‑ups to scale up

This policy brief examines why some innovative start-ups achieve scale while others do not, drawing on harmonised data for around 190 000 firms founded in the European Union and the United States between 2000 and 2025. It shows that scaling is a cumulative process shaped by financing, commercialisation, talent, market access and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Although EU firms that patent display invention intensity comparable to their US peers, they take longer to translate innovation into commercial scale. The financing gap also emerges mainly at later stages, when US firms can access substantially larger funding rounds. Experienced founders, professional management and acquisitions are associated with faster scaling, while successful scale-ups can stimulate local entrepreneurial activity. The findings call for policies that accelerate commercialisation, deepen late-stage finance, reduce barriers to market expansion, facilitate access to managerial talent and strengthen ecosystem linkages.