> Neither Singapore and Israel has a dominant currency, and yet both far, far outperform EU countries of similar siz

Can't really speak to Singapore, but Israel gets way more funding than basically any country in the EU. Now, a bunch of that is because it's had more successful startups and have been doing it longer, but some of it is extremely large investments in the country from US VCs.

It's part of a VC's job to go where investments pay off. Israeli startup investments have had an excellent ROI in aggregate, so of course foreign VCs go there.

In contrast, the EU's regulatory environment is extremely difficult for startups. I have multiple entrepreneurial French and German friends who have told me their businesses (which they started while living in here in E. Asia) would have been impossible to do in their home countries without significant starting capital.

In fact, three of them incorporated in Singapore, despite living elsewhere. Forming a US business via Stripe Atlas or Firstbase is also common and relatively painless, especially if it's an LLC.

Singapore is hardware focused, not easily transposed to the US. Israel's niche is defense and surveillance. Given Israel's extreme ties to the US, it is convenient to have these outside of the judiciary but basically under US agency.