I’ve recently been to Vienna, and visited local Austrian Startups Stammtisch. It went by the number #31, so quite a consistent event going on for more than a year now. The event took place in Sektor5 co-working space (which I have to recommend, because it’s a really cool place with only eur 18 per day! You can feel the international vibe and all that kinds of stuff).

Some of the stuff learned:

• Bureacracy. In order to open a traditional gmbh company, you may need to be patient and get a lot of papers and formalities. It can take up to 120 days.
• Government support. However, the good side, is that the process of bureacracy is not that painful, as the govt. is on your side and supports businesses will to change the country to innovation-driven economy. Grant system is strong here (http://www.austrianstartups.com/grants/)
• Hard to notice, when you’re from Russia, but Vienna is quite close to strongest european mainland startup hub: Berlin. An hour-flight only 🙂
• English is embraced throughout the IT startups. So yaay!- Expats! However, you’re more welcomed, if you speak deutsch. And because socialistic mindset, a good Austrian professional is mostly more preferable, than a great expat 😉 And there are loads of cool pros in Austria.
• Tons of sessions and meetups happen in Vienna, Salzburg and Graz. May keep you busy almost 100% of your time. There was a great atlassian event in Graz, that I wanted to attend, but didn’t. Sad.
• Great startup (and established IT companies) scene! Some of the big startups from Austria include: Runtastic (surely you’ve heard about it), bikemap (great stuff, more route-oriented than strava), Shpock (my facebook is overloaded with it’s ads now), mySugr (basically an ecosystem of apps made for people with diabetes, by people with diabetes) and lots of others.
• Vienna is extremely lovely!
• Met great ppl from Austria, Ireland and Eastern Europe 😉
  • Hey to Odessa guys, who created a venture find and were searching for partners (Crop Inc),
  • Good day to you, devs from Romania and Hungary,
  • Hi to Robert from heysharing.com.

A lot of info, funds, grants, support and meetups can be found at AustrianStartups.com

Wish I had more time to dive into Austrian IT scene. This summer I’m visiting Berlin, and I’m sure I’ll be even more sad, cause I’ll have even less time than in Vienna.

Keep up the good work, Austria! Your IT health status is great 😉