These 100 European Startups Raised +$20 Million in 2016🚀
The Ultimate List — Now Open Sourced
- Here is the excel sheet with the digital & tech European startups which raised more than $20m in 2016.
- This year, we also built a similar list for the US because comparison gives us food for thought.
- For these 100 startups, you’ll find a description of the activity, the category/sector, amount raised, HQ country or country in which the startup was founded in some cases, Lead Investor name & geography, year of establishment, etc.
- We used tools such as Crunchbase, Pitchbook, Angel List, LinkedIn & tech media to build the list.
- We excluded Life Sciences/Cleantech companies because our team does not invest in such sectors.
French, German and English Tech still on the podium
The UK, Germany and France stand for 70 of these 100 startups and more than 75% of the total fundraising! If you’re a VC covering Europe, you’re probably missing something if you don’t fly to these 3 countries. It’s all the more easy since the startup scene in the UK & France is deeply rooted in the capital cities and a plane lands in each every minute or so.
French Tech is on the podium with 15 super promising startups which raised more than $20m
- OVH, the leading European Web Host, raised $280m with KKR and TowerBrook and became a member of the very exclusive Unicorn Club.
- Something is definitely happening here (as I’m based in Paris): the ecosystem is booming and fundraising figures are evidence of it: $750m of capital invested in France in 2014, $1.7bn in 2015, $2.7bn in 2016…
English Tech, more mature, is still on top with 34 startups
- Deliveroo, Farfetch, Skyscanner are the top 3 British fundraises with 3 super strong consumer brands in Food, Fashion and Travel — our daily concerns. The UK remains a privileged land to build nice B2C brands in a large, English-speaking domestic market.
- The English ecosystem is maturing and although venture capital investment was flat between 2015 and 2016 ($3.7bn invested in total), it still remains the most active country in Europe in terms of fundraisings & exits.
GermanTech keeping pace with 21 startups standing for approximately 1/5 of the amount raised
- In 2015, Rocket Internet PT invested a crazy $568m amount in Delivery Hero.
- In 2016, it’s now the Rocket Internet fashion branch which makes it to the top of our ranking: Global Fashion Group with the biggest European fundraising of the year, $365m raised!
Almost half of these startups are Software or FinTech companies
No other “mega round” in excess of $100 million in Europe for the moment. But looking to the US, 6 software startups out of 24 total startups raised more than $100m in the US: Pivotal, Unity Technologies, StackPath, Stripe, SMS Assist, Onshape & Cylance, Inc.
It won’t be a surprise to see similar Software fundraising happen in Europe in the coming years because investments in SaaS companies represent a great part of the money invested in Series A & B in Europe right now ($5–20m rounds).
If you want to have a quick look at our flourishing SaaS ecosystem, Philippe Botteri — GP at Accel — created a list of the 100 most promising SaaS startups in Europe (see below).
Big Software and SaaS fundraising are already starting with Anaplan Inc raising $90m, Tradeshift GO getting $75m or Showpad grabbing $50m from Insight Venture Partners.
Regarding FinTech (21 companies in our ranking), most investments are made in the UK (10 out of 21 Fintech startups) and in Germany (5 out of 21), in companies with potential outlets for the end-consumer.
N26 (100% mobile banking) and Financefox (100% mobile insurance) are evidence of the changes in usage coming.
B2C stands for 70% of the amount invested in these startups
This is the case for 7 out of the 10 biggest rounds (Global Fashion Group, Deliveroo, Farfetch, Skyscanner, Cabify, Deezer and Devialet).
I think this ratio will decrease in the coming years: in the US, B2B already stands for more than 60% of the amount invested in big rounds (>$20m). Food for thought, though.
25% of Lead Investors come from the US, 60% are European
US VCs are getting serious about Europe, I already wrote about this deep trend here:
More than 70% of these companies were founded after 2010
And getting to the billion dollar valuation takes less and less time…
What about the US?
4x more startups raised more than $20 million in the US
The US is not playing in the same league. Some key findings from our data,, as of December 1st 2016:
- Approximately 50% of these startups are software companies.
- B2B is king, representing 60% of these investments.
- California remains a solid hub with more than 60% share of the investment pie.
- More than 85% of lead investors are US based.
- 73% were founded after 2010.
- A lot of AMAZING European-founded tech companies moved their HQ to the US and most of them are considered as US companies in our study. It’s the case of the brilliant Danish-founded company Unity Technologies for example which raised a $180m round led by DFJ Growth this year (5th largest US fundraising in 2016).
2017 — A very happy year for Software in Europe?
The European software ecosystem is booming and there are huge opportunities to build SaaS in Europe. Quoting eFounders here:
First: We believe there are huge opportunities to build SaaS in Europe as 25% of Western Europe companies are using cloud services, while it’s 50% in the US. For sure, Europe will keep up the pace and close this gap in the next years.
Second: Contrary to what people usually think, the European B2B market is NOT small. There are close to 20 million SMBs in Europe while there are 25 million in the US. In other words, for a SaaS business, Europe is full of prospects and potentialities!
Third: The valuation of the SaaS market worldwide is expected to grow from $25B in 2014 to $165B in 2022 — and what’s clear to us is that Europe will stay in the game and increase its shares in this global market.
Looking to grow? We just raised a new €250m Growth fund, aiming to invest up to $50M per round with a strong focus on SaaS. Say hi here or sign up to get notified of our next report.
