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Good practice Imported

LIAA Business Incubation Programme — Latvia's National Startup Incubation Network

Latvia · Riga · See the Latvia profile · See the Riga profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 54% 67/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Latvia's LIAA incubation network has supported 1,600+ companies since 2016 across 20+ offices; incubated companies achieved EUR 35.1M turnover and EUR 16M in exports in 2024, contributing EUR 10.3M in taxes — the previous period returned EUR 47M in taxes against a EUR 35M program

EUR 47M vs EUR 35M
Taxes paid vs programme cost (2016-2022)
EUR 35.1M
Combined turnover, active cohort (2024)
EUR 16M
Exports, active cohort (2024)
LIAA Business Incubation Programme — Latvia's National Startup Incubation Network

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA) — Ministry of Economics
Period
2016–present
Region (NUTS)
LV00
Keywords
Cross-sector (ICT, manufacturing, creative industries, biotech)

Context

The LIAA Business Incubation Programme is a national programme funded under EU Structural Funds and the Latvian state budget, managed by the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia under the Ministry of Economics. Since 2016 it has run 20+ incubation offices across Latvia's planning regions, deliberately decentralising support away from Riga.

Results

For the 2016-2022 cohort, incubated companies paid EUR 47M in taxes against EUR 35M programme cost -- a positive fiscal return. For 2024, active cohort companies reported EUR 35.1M combined turnover, EUR 16M in exports and EUR 10.3M in taxes; the Spring 2025 intake was the largest ever at 69 new companies.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
LIAA regional incubation office managers, Business coaches and mentors

Conditions for success

  • EU Structural Funds plus national budget co-financing
  • Deliberate regional decentralisation with 20+ offices outside Riga
  • Eligibility limited to early-stage firms under 4 years/50 employees

Commonly funded by

ERDF — European Regional Development Fund National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

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