Over the past years, the number of startups around Europe has grown. As a result, startup unicorns in Europe have experienced sudden growth, and they deserve to be in the spotlight. Not many companies and entrepreneurs accomplish growth and valuation of over 1 billion dollars.
According to Pitchbook data, 23 companies in Europe became unicorns in 2021, easily beating 2020’s total of eight. Despite the ongoing effects of the pandemic, a record amount of VC capital has continued to flow to European startups. The increase in investment is partly because of US firms that have been actively targeting Europe’s tech startups. European startups tend to have lower valuations than their US counterparts, offering more opportunities for higher growth rates.
Swedish fintech startup Klarna became the continent’s most valuable VC-backed company in March at $31 billion. In addition, German startups have also done particularly well this year for unicorn creation. For example, Berlin-based online grocery delivery startup Gorillas secured unicorn status with a $290 million Series B, according to a PitchBook estimate.
However, as shown in the chart, the UK accounts for the most unicorns. Its new entrants include London-headquartered Blockchain.com, which raised $120 million at a reported $3 billion valuation in February and secured a further $300 million a month later, pushing its value to $5.2 billion.
In addition, fintech and French startups have done particularly well this year. We’ve seen Lendable, Starling, Blockchain.com, PPRO, Bitpanda, Shift Technology, Vestiaire Collective and Alan all reach unicorn status.
We’ve listed a few Europe startup unicorns from 2021. Here we go.
1. Acorns
Acorns, was founded in 2012 with a simple idea to round up people’s spare change from debit or credit card purchases and automatically invest them via the application. A person can make an investment automatically into one to five portfolios, each carrying different levels of risk. It is heavily focused on the millennial market. With easy UI and UX, it appeals to the younger generation of new investors.
2. About you
This Hamburg-based startup is one of the fastest-growing e-commerce companies in Europe, offering a personalized shopping experience on your smartphone. As a subsidiary of the Otto Group, the platform tailors to each customer’s individual style, and with its selection of over 150,000 products from more than 1,000 brands, there is something for everyone. Valued at $1 billion after raising $300 million in 2018.
3. Gorillas
The grocery delivery app launched at the beginning of lockdown in March 2020. Perfect timing with demand for online grocery shopping at its peak. However, Gorillas is not the only app on the market. Berlin-based Gorillas is going up against competitors like Flink, Getir, Weezy, Dija and Zapp which are also expanding fast across the continent. Gorillas hit unicorn status at its $290m Series B round in March 2021.
4. Alan
In 2016 French startup Alan won a French insurance licence. Alan started providing health insurance for employees of small companies, differentiating itself from the century-old industry giants such as Generali. Currently, Alan covers more than 76,000 members, and has grown its team to 200 people.
It became a unicorn in April 2021 after a €185m fundraise led by Coatue, with participation from Dragoneer, Exor, Index Ventures, Ribbit Capital and Temasek.
4. Epidemic Sound
Epidemic Sound is a Swedish soundtrack company that achieved unicorn status when it raised $450m of equity from Blackstone and the EQT Group in March 2021. It’s also backed by Creandum, Kichi Invest, DS Asset Management and SEB.
YouTube videos that use music from Epidemic’s library of 32k music tracks and 60k sound effects are played an exceptional 1.5bn times a day.
It generates revenue through subscriptions — $15 per month for personal use and $49 for commercial — and it’s through this model that Epidemic is profitable.
5. Payhawk
Bulgarian first unicorn Payhawk raised $100m in new funding. Founded in 2018, Payhawk is a B2B platform that provides financial departments with a single place to manage the entire spending lifecycle. The startup claims it can save companies significant amounts of manual work and potential errors.
The fintech platform made it on the list of startup unicorns in Europe in 2021. It has aggressive expansion plans and aims to be a trigger for the local startup ecosystem as a whole.
6. Beamery
Beamery was founded on the premise that regardless of where you live, your background, pedigree, race, or religion, everyone should have the same access to work, and that companies needed to fundamentally transform their hiring process.
The shift to remote working has produced a huge need for digital hiring services. Backed by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, EQT Ventures and Index Ventures. According to Pitchbook, the startup helps companies identify, attract and retain talent. Beamery’s most recent round in June brought in $138 million at a reported $800 million valuation.
7. Mambu
Mambu offers a lean, cloud-based core-banking solution for financial services. As a result, Mambu has revolutionized the banking game. It started as a student project, at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After contacting banks in emerging African countries, the trio realized that they were onto something. The operating systems these banks were using turned out to be outdated, non-existent or too complex for simple products.
Within just two years, 100 microfinance organizations in 26 countries worldwide adopted Mambu’s cloud-banking technology. Shortly, Mambu gained unicorn status in 2021 with a $2.1 billion valuation.
We highlighted only a few unicorns in 2021, as the list goes on. Therefore, if you would like to see some other unicorn startups in 2021, feel free to send an email and we’d be happy to include them.