Smart Economy and Startup Enterprises in the Visegrád Countries—A Comparative Analysis Based on the Crunchbase Database

Abstract

The present study seeks to explore the concept of “smart economy” through the definition of the smart city. It also presents smart city subsystems and the smart city model. It focuses on smart and creative startups within the smart city model. The research examines medium-sized cities in the Visegrád countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary) with a population ranging from 100,000 to 1 million inhabitants for startups. The research question is: Where are the medium-sized cities in the Visegrád countries that are both startup centers and smart cities? In the course of the research, the term “smart cities” was based on the definition set by the European Commission and the definition of startup centers was made using data analysis of the American Crunchbase database. As a result of the two studies, it can be concluded that there are no cities in the Visegrád countries with an above average level of both startup presence and smart cities.