Compare
The Hub is a recruitment platform for Nordic startups. It began in 2015 inside Danske Bank Growth, was built and operated with Rainmaking, and in 2022 was acquired by Mesh Community and merged with Startupmatcher. It is exclusively for growth companies from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland, and it is strict about it: a company must be under 20 years old and meet three of four tests around external investors, technology-driven scale and innovation, and corporates, recruitment agencies and headhunters are not allowed. The Hub's own team reviews every registration.
Its directory is large and its job board is small. In September 2026 the startup directory showed 11,140 companies, 5,245 of them Danish, and the jobs page showed 334 open roles, 45 of them remote. Job pages show salary and equity ranges when the startup fills them in, and applying happens on The Hub with a CV or a LinkedIn profile. Expired roles are not deleted; they stay online marked as no longer active.
Companies pay per post: €89 for a basic six-week listing, €330 for Pro, €1,100 for Max, with a Scout service charged per hire, and a free Community Program for companies before revenue or funding. The platform also syncs with Teamtailor, Workable, Greenhouse and Lever and distributes to LinkedIn and Google Jobs. What it does not have is a city filter: jobs filter by country, Other Europe and remote, and a city can only be reached by editing the URL.
The honest difference is the shape of the map. The Hub goes deep into five countries with a vetted directory that knows each company's stage, size and whether it is looking for funding, and it charges companies to post the roles it lists. StartupMap goes wide: 4,569 hand-reviewed startups across 55 European cities, from Lisbon to Tallinn, with 16,229 live roles read from the startups' own careers sites rather than posted, and a city as the unit you browse by.
Last reviewed: September 2026
| Compare | StartupMap | The Hub |
|---|---|---|
| Countries | 55 cities across Europe | Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, plus an Other Europe bucket |
| Startups listed | 4,569, hand-reviewed | 11,140 (Sept 2026), vetted by The Hub's team |
| Live jobs | 16,229 | 334 (Sept 2026) |
| How a company gets in | Funded or accelerator-backed; reviewed before it appears | Under 20 years old, three of four growth tests, no corporates or agencies; reviewed |
| How jobs get listed | Read from each startup's own careers site; free | Employer pays €89, €330 or €1,100 per post, live six weeks; free Community Program pre-funding |
| Salary and equity ranges | No | Yes, when the startup fills them in |
| Closed roles | Gone on the next nightly re-sync | Stay online marked no longer active |
| City search | The primary axis: every city is a page | No city filter; country only, a city via the URL |
Not as a market. The join page says the platform is exclusively accessible to growth companies from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland, and the startup directory's country filter offers exactly those five. Jobs are a little looser: the location filter includes an Other Europe option and a remote option, and individual roles based in London, for instance, do appear, because a Nordic company can hire abroad. But a Berlin or Paris startup cannot register, so a candidate in Germany, France, the Netherlands or Iberia is looking at a board built for someone else. StartupMap's map covers 55 European cities, the Nordic capitals among them, and treats every one the same way.
Bottom line: The Hub is built for five Nordic countries; StartupMap covers 55 cities across Europe, the Nordic capitals included.
A few hundred. In September 2026 the jobs page, with no filters applied, showed 334 jobs, 45 of them remote, against a directory of 11,140 startups. The gap is the model: every listing is a paid post, live for six weeks, so the board shows the companies recruiting through The Hub this month rather than every open role at every Nordic startup. The directory is the larger asset, and it is a good one, with stage, size, funding state and a looking-for-funding flag on each profile. StartupMap's 16,229 live roles are read from the careers sites of its 4,569 startups, so the job count tracks what startups are actually hiring for, not what they paid to post; 1,738 of them show at least one open role today.
Bottom line: The Hub showed 334 live jobs against 11,140 startups in September 2026; StartupMap lists 16,229 live roles because it reads them from the startups themselves.
Carefully, and on criteria that are published. A company must be based in one of the five Nordic countries, be less than 20 years old, and meet three of four tests: it grows with external investors, it scales largely through technology, it is innovative, and it is a growth company rather than a corporate, an agency or a headhunter, all of which are barred. The Hub's Customer Success team reviews every registration. That is stricter than most boards and it shows in the directory. StartupMap's bar is simpler and pan-European: a startup is in because it has raised a round or come through an accelerator, and a person has looked at it before it appears on the map.
Bottom line: Both vet by hand; The Hub vets Nordic growth companies, StartupMap vets funded startups anywhere in Europe.
Not from the interface. The jobs sidebar filters by country, by Other Europe, by remote, by 24 role categories and by job type, and the startup directory adds industry, stage, size and funding flags. A city does not appear anywhere in those controls. It is possible to reach one by editing the URL to a location such as Copenhagen, Denmark, which in September 2026 returned a single job, but a visitor would not know to try. For a candidate who has decided on a city, that is a real gap. StartupMap starts from the city: 55 of them, each with its own page for startups and for jobs, and the map itself as the way to move between them.
Bottom line: The Hub filters by country and has no city control; on StartupMap the city is where you start.
Side-by-side breakdowns of the other platforms we get compared to.
See which European startups are hiring right now.
Explore the map →