Nam Needs to Work on Its Startup Ecosystem

By: Nghiinomenwa-vali Erastus

Globally, Namibia is ranked 85th when it comes to creating a conducive environment for startups up out of 118 countries.

The Global Startup Ecosystem Index by StartupBlink has been updated annually since 2017 and currently ranks the startup ecosystems of: 1,473 cities and 118 countries.

It is built using hundreds of thousands of data points processed by an algorithm that takes into account several dozen sets of parameters comprising three subscores: Quantity (measuring the activity level of the ecosystem).

Quality (assessing the impact and success of the activity in the ecosystem), and Business Environment (evaluating how supportive the overall conditions are for startup growth).

The Index compares the number of startups between the 2024 and 2025 Index freezes on the StartupBlink Global Startup Map across 11 key industries.

It found that startups emerging in Food Tech, Hardware & IoT, and Energy & Environment are the fastest growing sectors, each expanding by over 40% in startup count.