Our mission is to be a strong political voice on behalf of ambitious startups, scaleups and founders
How do we make Norway a leading startup nation?
The most valuable companies work with Big Tech. They were grown from strong startup ecosystems, with the support of investors ready to take a risk, talents eager to build and policies designed for them to grow. Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon and Tesla, 6 of the 10 largest companies, are all from USA.
Big Tech is small in Norway. We need to invest more capital in new ideas, attract international talent and build Tech for the global market. That is what the EU is doing: the European Commission have launched the EU Startup and Scaleup Strategy and are joining forces with private investors to set up a multi-billion Scaleup Europe Fund. Their slogan is that “the best of Europe choose Europe”, a fitting one seeing as 30% of European unicorns relocated outside Europe, while only 8% of the world’s scale-ups, actually are in Europe.
Tech is the future, and it is built today.
Tax for growth
We believe in a fair tax system that encourages growth. As it is now, growth companies are slowed down or staggered due to taxes that often makes no sense.
In 2026, NAST is advising the Norwegian tax commission. The commission will publish their suggestions 1 July 2026, and then Stortinget will decide on a potential new tax reform in the spring of 2027.
NAST has six principles for policy, that our suggested actions are based on.
Improve Norwegian competitiveness
Promote tomorrow’s companies
Don’t tax seeds as if it was crops
Ensure predictability
Avoid loss of efficiency
Keep it simple
Attract capital
The startup sector is dependent on risk capital for investments. Even great ideas stay ideas if no one invests in realizing them.
The EU knows this, and in 2025, Ursula von der Leyen and the European Commission has initiated the Scale up Europe fund of $5 billion. We need to grow European technology businesses, or become completely dependent on other regions.
As one of the world’s largest investor, Norway is in a unique position to do more. As a small first step, the government should provide more risk capital for the funds who need it to build the Norwegian venture scene.
NAST has two principles for policy, that our suggested actions are based on.
Attract international capital to Norway
Incentivize investors to include early stage companies to their portfolios
Attract talent
If we want to be competitive on an international scale, our companies are dependent on top talents from around the world. Startups and scale-ups typically coin themselves as “born global”, meaning they have a global mindset even with two employees. To ensure you have the resources needed to scale, sell, adapt and grow, you need to be able to hire globally. You also need to be able to move around globally – as a founder and often top management, you need to be flexible as to where you live for periods of time.
To attract talent, especially international talent, we need to change the exit tax and provide ambitious option schemes.
“Europe has the ideas and the talent to build the most innovative companies in the world. But as they scale up we need to ensure they have the means to grow, attract investment and thrive right here at home. High quality jobs and Europe’s overall competitiveness depends on it. The Scaleup Europe Fund is an essential part of our work to make sure the best of Europe can choose Europe.”
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission
(28 October 2025)