SEP publishes first report on Scaleups in Europe

In Brussels, at Europe 2020 Summit, during the Official Launch Event of Startup Europe Partnership, Alberto Onetti unveiled the initial results of a preliminary analysis of European startups that have received more than $1M funding in the last three-year period (SEP Monitor). The research is conducted by Startup Europe Partnership and is based on extensive online resource and data mining. The Startup Europe Partnership mapping & scouting database focuses on “scaleups”, i.e., European startups that have been able to break the “early-stage barrier” and are a candidate to become large global companies and real job creators.

Although not final, the insights from the collected data provide some interesting initial findings. Below the headlines:

• There are over one thousand European startups that have secured an investment of more than $1M growth funding in the last three-year period.
• In the same period, the market has witnessed a steep rise of multiple, popular European startups. For example: the food-ordering portal Delivery Hero, encompassing over 55K restaurants in 14 countries. Founded in September 2010, it has raised over $306M in 8 rounds. Another recently founded successful company is Stockholm-based iZettle, which secured over $102M in three rounds to grow its mobile payment business.
• Not surprisingly, the most prolific startup environment is in the United Kingdom, which accounts for more than one quarter of the mapped startups, followed by Germany representing over 15%.
• The most active Venture Capital investors are also predominantly based in these two countries (e.g. Balderton Capital, Index Ventures, DFJ Esprit and Earlybird). Finland’s 7% share is remarkable, considering the size of the economy. Eastern European startups have generally much smaller initial funding, even though there are some exceptions like the Hungary-based Prezi or Lithuania-based Vinted.
• The 57% of actively fundraising startups (over $1M in 2011-14) have been founded after 2010. This suggests a positive evolution for the European ecosystem in which startups are able to get a significant amount of growth capital in their early stages of development.
• One of the trends observed is that a significant amount of successful startups transfer their headquarters from Europe to United States. Although some companies maintain their R&D centers in Europe (such as Prezi in Hungary and Funambol in Italy).

Here is the link to download the full report  SEP Monitor – May 2014 and the SEP Europe 2020 Summit PressRelease