The publication Scale-ups in the Nordics 2017 is supplementing and updating the first statistics on Nordic scale-ups, Scale-ups in the Nordics – statistical portrait 2008-2016, produced by the national statistical institutes in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and co-funded and published by Nordic Innovation May 2019. The publication introduces a new and enlarged definition of scale-ups, as enterprises showing high turnover growth are included in the definition of scale-ups supplementing the population of enterprises with high employment growth. The traditional definition focuses on employment growth only.

The publication is based on harmonised national databases holding statistical information at enterprise level from statistical registers covering variables from structural business statistics, business register, international trade in goods and business demography.