The Danish Startup Ecosystem Guide - Magasin - Side 71
clients,” explains Morten Høgh-Petersen, Partner in KPMG Denmark, and head
of the KPMG Venture & Startup team.
A problem for the ecosystem
In Denmark, the number of limited
liability companies has doubled from
150,000 to 325,000 over the past 20 years,
while the number of authorised auditors
has fallen over the same period.
“The startup ecosystem is sadly underserved. This is critical, because all
scalable companies need to have their
house in order. Otherwise, you risk investors dropping out due to errors in VAT,
tax, accounting and the risk of the errors
KPMG Venture & Startup
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25 employees, 4 state-authorised
public accountants, in Aarhus and
Copenhagen
450 customers based in the startup
environment.
Serving startups from early-stage to
scaleup and IPO
Experts in corporate structure
(holding), tax credit scheme (ll8x and
ll8b), accounting, tax, stock options
(ll7p), investments, soft funding, exits,
IPOs and international expansion
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growing,” says Morten Høgh-Petersen.
Over the next ten years, there will be
even fewer authorised accountants, while
the number of startups and businesses is
expected to increase. This is a challenge,
as more advice is needed - not less.
“For most startups, it’s about getting
the right advice from the start,” he summarises.
Untapped opportunities for startups
One example of this trend is the use of
the tax credit scheme (ll8x), which was
adopted by the Danish Parliament in 2013.
The scheme allows startups, scaleups and
other growth companies to receive the
tax value (22%) of a loss of up to DKK 25
million if it relates to research and development expenses. A fragile phase where
companies often lack liquidity.
In 2021, SKAT clarified that their interpretation of when the scheme can be
used, especially in relation to software
companies, is very limited. One of the
effects of this has been that many startups that perform qualified research and
development and their advisors - today
refrain from using the scheme. Despite
the limitation in terms of software, the
scheme should continue to be more ben-
eficial than we see in practice, especially
for some smaller startups whose activity
is technological development.
If you have a tech startup doing concrete and innovative development, “every
fifth krone can be recouped in cash up
to the 22% of DKK 25 million per year.
But when many are not aware of the
opportunities, they do not use them. The
good advice is that you should at least
investigate the possibility,” says Morten
Høgh-Petersen.
In addition, we see that too few are
aware of the technical accounting possibility of capitalising development as an
intangible asset (i.e. putting the development on the balance sheet). This can
be crucial for the company’s equity and
thus its solvency. Many startups do not
understand the importance of positive
equity - which, among other things, is
very important. Vækstfonden and suppliers are very keen on.
“I think one of the big challenges in the
coming years will be access to capital.
What we’re trying to do is to get startups
to make a lot of small, good decisions
that may prove to increase their chances of success further down the line,”
Høgh-Petersen predicts.
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