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Abstract

As the era of cutting-edge technologies emerges, countries realize that innovation embracing policies may enhance the potential for economic prosperity. A crucial aspect of innovation strength is the power to produce unicorns and scale-ups, which export high-technology solutions serving global demand while creating local high-paying jobs. CEE countries have been cooperating in economic initiatives for centuries while also possessing similar economic history and competitive attributes e.g., lower average software engineering salaries which ensure the viability of another plausible partnership.This research combines the Dealroom database of more than 450 start-ups in CEE with the U.S. Annual Business Survey results to determine the technological comparative advantages of CEE countries and highlight their major potential markets in the United States. The supply and the comparative advantages of CEE countries are calculated utilizing the VC funding distribution across sectors and technologies raised by scale-ups, defined as start-ups with more than 1m EUR funding, headquartered in CEE countries. The demand estimation of U.S. firms for technology solutions is based on the number of businesses adopting certain technologies in specific states and sectors. Poland has the strongest scale-up ecosystem with 1.4bn EUR total funding followed by the Czech Republic with 1bn EUR, Hungary with 544m EUR, Slovenia with 130m EUR, and Slovakia with 91m EUR. Poland exhibits significant advantage in health and education tech, the Czech Republic in blockchain and cybersecurity, Hungary in autonomous sensor tech and robotics, Slovenia in biotech and pharmaceuticals, and Slovakia inrobotics and IoT. It is also found that there is significant demand for technology applications among SMEs in the U.S., partly due to the lack of skilled workers, which could be captured with the support ofthe Technology Trade Council and the collaboration of CEE through smart specialization.