Tech Start-up Internationalisation : Development of an internationalisation model for born global web-based tech start-ups from European start-up hubs

Sammanfattning: International entrepreneurship is a prominent phenomenon in contemporary research, because of the ease of internationalisation for companies. Start-up hubs in Europe are booming and especially web-based tech companies internationalise quickly. This new type of company, which internationalises almost immediately after foundation, is called born global. Research showed that despite the interest in born global tech start-ups, there is no representative model visualising the process of their internationalisation. Therefore, secondary research is conducted, as well as empirical research in the form of qualitative interviews with three representative, successfully internationalised tech start-ups from Europe. These companies are the music streaming service Spotify, social marketing SaaS Facelift and business management SaaS Ivy. The internationalisation factors resulting from this research can be divided into a preparation phase, possible strategy development and an implementation phase. Within these phases, factors are separated into company- internal and external influences. Based on these findings, a new model on the internationalisation process of web- based tech start-ups is developed.