While Europe might be a single market, it’s definitely not a single tech scene. That fact makes it difficult to feel the pulse of the European tech. But if you take a close look, you’ll quickly notice that there is interesting stuff happening in Europe
With this report we want to provide a comprehensive review of investment in startups and high-growth technology companies across 31 countries in Europe. Our aim is to provide data-driven guidance, insights and inspiration to stakeholders in the European scaleup ecosystem.
3. 3
While Europe might be a single market, it’s definitely not a single tech
scene. That fact makes it difficult to feel the pulse of the European tech.
But if you take a close look, you’ll quickly notice that there is interesting
stuff happening in Europe
With this report we want to provide a comprehensive review of
investment in startups and high-growth technology companies across
31 countries in Europe. Our aim is to provide data-driven guidance,
insights and inspiration to stakeholders in the European scaleup
ecosystem.
We hope you find the 2016 edition of the report informative.
Sincerely,
Omar Mohout
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT FOREWORD
PARTNERS
4. 4
This report is part of a series of funding
reports that are published on a quarterly
basis. A yearly report will also summarize
quarterly findings. Other reports complement
the series, focusing on geographical markets
and vertical industries such as the FinTech
report that is written in collaboration with
Eggsplore.
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT ABOUT
This report is a snapshot in time, aimed at
analysing funding data, major trends within
the industry and the regions.
Only deals of at least $1M / € 750K are
considered for this report.
If you would like to provide your input for the
report, signal an omission of data or have any
other feedback, we would love to hear it. Just
pop an email to omar.mohout@sirris.be
ABOUT THIS REPORT
5. HIGHLIGHTS 2016
5
• € 15.9B across 1,648 deals in 31 countries;
• UK is leading in 2016 funding;
• France has the highest number of deals;
• The city with the highest number of deals is London, followed by
Paris and Stockholm;
• Bpifrance is the most active EU venture fund in Europe;
• Marketplaces is the most popular business model used by
European scaleups;
• FinTech is the most funded vertical both in capital raised and in
number of deals;
• 22 European technology companies went IPO raising € 3.4B;
• In average European scaleups have 50 employees;
• Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands have the highest number of
B2B oriented scaleups;
• Italy, Sweden and Austria have the highest number of B2C oriented
scaleups
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT HIGHLIGHTS
7. 7
€ 3.566
€ 2.499
€ 2.370
€ 2.187
€ 1.789
€ 541
€ 538
€ 493
€ 449
€ 342
UK
Denmark
France
Sweden
Germany
Switzerland
Netherlands
Spain
Ireland
Finland
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
Denmark and Sweden are performing extreme well
due to the IPO of Nets in Denmark (€ 2.1B) and
Spotify raising € 1.3B in debt financing and a
convertible note. The grey area in the graph
indicates the major impact of these 2 companies.
AMOUNT RAISED PER COUNTRY 2016*
*In millions
8. 8
350
345
203
188
69
67
67
61
51
46
France
UK
Germany
Sweden
Spain
Belgium
Netherlands
Finland
Switzerland
Italy
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
France is the rising star of 2016
with the highest number of deals
in the European landscape.
The gap between France/UK and
Germany is significant. While tiny
Sweden is performing in the same
league as the biggest economy of
Europe.
Smaller countries such as
Belgium, Finland and Switzerland
are doing extremely well and
punching above their economic
weight.
DEALS PER COUNTRY 2016
9. 9
€ 568
€ 816
€ 1.111
€ 1.269
€ 1.594
€ 1.737
€ 2.007
€ 2.417
€ 2.585
€ 2.862
€ 3.310
€ 3.566
29 63 91 110 138 166 200 221 259 301 329 345
Jan. Feb. March April May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
BREXIT DIDN’T SLOW DOWN UK FUNDING IN 2016*
AMOUNT RAISED AND NUMBER OF DEALS FOR THE UK
*In millions
10. 10
€ 4.196
€ 1.606
€ 1.085
€ 956
€ 956
€ 888
€ 685
€ 458
€ 361
€ 321
FinTech
MusicTech
HealthTech
Travel
eCommerce
AdTech
FoodTech
Gaming
PropTech
HRTech
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
The top 10 industries count for 72%
of all capital raised.
FinTech is still hot and the industry
champion of 2016.
MusicTech is influenced by a single
company, Spotify. HealthTech had in
Q4 the strongest quarter of the year.
Travel is being impacted with the €
176M raised by Skyscanner in
January and the Trivago IPO in
December. eCommerce had a peak
in April and May thanks to Africa
Internet Group.
AMOUNT RAISED PER INDUSTRY 2016*
*In millions
12. 12
74%
70% 69% 68%
65% 63%
60%
57%
49%
45% 44%
40% 39%
26%
30% 31% 32%
35% 37%
40%
43%
51%
55% 56%
60% 61%
Ireland Belgium Netherlands Finland Switzerland UK Denmark France Germany Spain Sweden Austria Italy
B2B
B2C
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
B2B & B2C NUMBER OF DEALS PER COUNTRY
Top 13 countries
13. 42%58%
B2C B2B
48%
52%
B2C B2B
13
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
B2B & B2C COMPARISON
NUMBER
OF DEALS
AMOUNT
RAISED
Contrary to Silicon Valley, where 2 out
of 3 startups are consumer oriented,
European scaleups are predominantly
B2B (58%). Ireland and Belgium have
the highest number of B2B scaleups.
More surprising is that manufacturing
giant Germany is slightly more
consumer oriented (49% B2B). But
that’s due to the weight of Berlin in
the German startup ecosystem and
confirms the saying that “Berlin is not
Germany.” Berlin’s scaleups are mainly
consumer oriented. Compare that to
Munich, where 76% of scaleups are
B2B.
15. 15
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
AVERAGE FOUNDING YEAR
Norway
2010
Belgium
Denmark
Switzerland
UK
France
Sweden
Finland
2011
Austria
Netherlands
Ireland
2012
Spain
Germany
Italy
2013
To raise a series A in Europe, a
company needs to be founded in
2012.
For a B2B startup it’s even more
challenging, it needs to be
founded in 2011 in order to raise
a series A.
Surprising, for a company to raise
at least $1 million in
crowdfunding, it needs to have
been established in 2011. For an
IPO it is 2004 on average.
16. 16
47%
23%
11%
5%
3%
2%
1%
1%
1%
1%
Series A
Seed
Series B
Series C
Crowdfunding
Debt financing
IPO
Series D
Convertible Note
Grant
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
Given the threshold of € 750K/$
1M, it’s not surprising that the
majority of deals are series A.
Convertible notes are less popular
in Europe and count for less than
1%.
DEAL TYPE 2016
17. 17
24%
11%
10%
8%
7%
6%
5%
3%
2%
2%
Marketplace
SaaS
Hardware
Data Analytics
Internet of Things
Artificial Intelligence
App
Freemium
Content driven
Virtual Reality
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
Not surprisingly, the marketplace
approach is the leading business
model for scaleups, counting for
24% of the total.
The UK is leading in AI, data
analytics, apps and SaaS while
autonomous vehicles, hardware, IoT
and market places is dominated by
France. Sweden is the #1 spot for VR
TYPE OF BUSINESS MODELS/TECHNOLOGY 2016
18. 18
€ 1.166
€ 1.261
€ 2.133
€ 923 € 1.006 € 946 € 948 € 884
€ 3.263
€ 949
€ 1.390
€ 1.054
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec.
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
CAPITAL RAISED 2016*
*In millions
European scaleups together raise
around € 1B per month.
The peaks In March (due to Spotify)
and September (due to Nets) are
exception.
The amounts above € 1B usually
indicate one or more IPOs in that
specific month. For example,
November saw 5 IPOs totalling €
393M.
19. 19
131 130 130
121
136
174
133
100
184
160
137
112
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec.
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
Around 138 deals are closed in
Europe every month. There is a
slow down during summer, however
it gets compensated in the month of
September.
The summer drop is the highest in
France where just 6 deals are been
announced in August while the
other months are 5 times as high.
NUMBER OF DEALS 2016
20. 1. London
2. Paris
3. Stockholm
4. Berlin
5. Barcelona
6. Dublin
7. Munich
8. Amsterdam
9. Milan
10. Cambridge/Helsinki
1. London
2. Ballerup
3. Stockholm
4. Paris
5. Berlin
6. Amsterdam
7. Dublin
8. Copenhagen
9. Barcelona
10. Munich
20
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
SCALEUP CITIES 2016
NUMBER OF DEALS AMOUNT RAISED
London counts for 64% of all UK
deals, Paris for 63%, Berlin for 34%
and Stockholm for 67%.
Barcelona and Milan are the scaleup
cities of their respective country
instead of the capital cities. We see
the same in Portugal with Porto and
Lausanne in Switzerland.
Note how Germany is the only
country that has 2 cities (Berlin and
Munich) in both lists. It indicates
that the country is developing two
different focal points, one around
B2C (Berlin) and one around B2B
(Munich).
21. 21
0
50
100
150
200
250
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec.
Berlin London Paris Stockholm
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
Despite all the buzz about Berlin, if
there is a challenger to London, it is
Paris. The number of deals is equal
to London despite the visible slow
down of the French ecosystem
during summer.
As big a surprise is how easily
Stockholm outperformed Berlin in
the second half of the year. In dollar
value, Stockholm is already 2x
bigger than Berlin. There was a time
that startups moved from Stockholm
to Berlin to scale up their business.
But now Sweden is in a league of its
own.
VENTURE CAPITAL DEALS 2016, THE BIG FOUR
22. 22
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
TOP 5 BIGGEST DEALS*
€ 2B € 1.3B € 375M€ 328M € 280M
#01 #02 #03 #04 #05
*In amount raised
23. 23
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
Only 8% of European scaleups are
spin-offs or spin-outs. While it’s
true that spin-offs are not the only
way that universities can monetize
research, it’s nevertheless an
indication that innovation is mainly
happening outside campuses and
labs.
However, universities do play a role
in patentable hard tech in specific
areas such as Medtech, BioTech Life
Sciences, encryption, materials
science, robotics, nanotechnology,
semiconductors, and the like.
Note the better performance of
smaller countries Switzerland,
Belgium and Sweden.
MOST ACTIVE SPIN OFF INSTITUTES 2016
1. University of Cambridge (UK)
2. École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland)
3. Imperial College London (UK)
4. KULeuven (Belgium)
5. imec (Belgium)
6. University of Edinburgh (UK)
7. Karolinska Institutet (Sweden)
8. Lund University (Sweden)
9. Aalto University (Finland)
10. Politecnico di Milano (Italy) / ETH Zurich (Switzerland)
24. 24
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
14% of the European scaleups
graduated from an acceleration
program. Program alumni don’t
necessary raise more money, but
they are two years younger on
average when they raise money. It
might well be that they can start to
scale earlier or have better access to
investors thanks to the programs.
ACCELERATORS, BY NUMBER OF FUNDED SCALEUPS 2016
1. 500 Startups (US)
2. iStart imec (Belgium)
3. Seedcamp (UK)
4. Microsoft Accelerator (multiple countries)
5. Y Combinator (US)
6. Paris&Co (France)
7. Techstars (US/UK)
8. TheFamily (France)
9. Le Hub Bpifrance (France)
10. ideaSpace (UK)
11. Startupbootcamp (Multiple countries)
25. 25
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
Corporate Venture Capital is
involved in 14% of all European
deals and 19% of all capital raised.
The top deals are Africa Internet
Group (AXA, Goldman Sachs,
Orange), Skyscanner (Yahoo Japan)
and Sigfox (Salesforce, Total, Intel,
Tamer Group, Air Liquide).
The deal with the largest number of
corporates investing in a single deal
is Brussels based FinTech scaleup
Belgian Mobile Wallet with
Proximus, Orange, Telenet, Belfius,
BNP Paribas Fortis, KBC and ING as
investors.
MOST ACTIVE CORPORATE VENTURE CAPITAL 2016
1. Salesforce (US)
2. MAIF (France)
3. Intel (US)
4. Orange (France, Belgium)
5. SNCF (France)
6. Robert Bosch (Germany)
7. Telefónica (Spain)
8. Goldman Sachs (US)
9. Nokia (Finland)
10. Rakuten (Japan)
26. 26
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
The most active 2016 venture
investor in Europe is the French
government. Bpifrance is a French
public fund and involved in 23% of
all deals in France.
MOST ACTIVE INVESTORS BREAKDOWN OF INVESTORS
1. Bpifrance (France)
2. Index Ventures (Switzerland)
3. Global Founders Capital (Germany)
4. Kima Ventures (France)
5. High-Tech Gründerfonds (Germany)
6. Sunstone Capital (Denmark)
7. Balderton Capital (UK)
8. European Commission
9. IDInvest (France)
10. Holtzbrinck Ventures (Germany)
VC
63%
Family Office
11%
PE
9%
CVC
9%
Government
7%
27. 27
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
Europe saw 22 IPOs of technology
companies in 2016 totalling € 3.4B.
7 IPOs are from Swedish tech
companies. That fact in itself is
remarkable and even more so that
also Austrian game studio THQ
Nordic went public In Stockholm. So
did Catena Media from Malta.
The Nordics saw both the youngest
and oldest company going public,
Cellink founded in 2016 and Nets
founded in 1968.
Irish Oneview Healthcare went
public in Australia and Belgian
Moovly in Canada.
Only 2 European scaleups went
public on Nasdaq in Wall Street:
German Trivago and French Talend.
IPO PER COUNTRY 2016
1. Sweden (Three Gates, Frisq, Cellink, Crunchfish, Edgeware, Appspotr, Smart Eye)
2. UK (LoopUp, FreeAgent, CMC Markets, Creo Medical, ECSC Group)
3. France (Witbe, Kerlink, Talend)
4. Belgium(Moovly)
5. Denmark (Nets)
6. Ireland (Oneview Healthcare)
7. Netherlands (Takeaway.com)
8. Germany (Trivago)
9. Austria (THQ Nordic)
10. Malta (Catena Media)
28. 28
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
Media for equity is a small portion
of the growth capital mix for
European scaleups. They took part
in 7 deals totalling € 35M.
The most active investor using this
model is Swedish Aggregate Media
involved in 4 deals. Spanish Media
Digital Ventures was involved in 2
deals.
This type of investment goes mainly
to B2C companies typically active in
HRTech.
MEDIA FOR EQUITY 2016
1. Job Today (Luxembourg) via Channel 4, German Media Pool
2. CornerJob (Spain) via Media Digital Ventures
3. Hundredrooms (Spain) via Media Digital Ventures
4. Vakanta (Sweden) via Aggregate Media
5. Nextory (Sweden) via Aggregate Media
6. Fello (Sweden) via Aggregate Media
7. Billogram (Sweden) via Aggregate Media
29. OUTLIERS IN THE EUROPEAN SCALEUP ECOSYSTEM 2016
29
• Cellink, a Swedish 3D bioprinter company; is been established in January
2016 and went public 10 months later raising € 15M on Nasdaq First North;
• Nets, a Danish FinTech company, is the oldest technology company to raise
capital in Europe. It was established in 1968 and went public in September
2016 raising € 2.1B;
• Finnish FinTech scaleup Tapp Commerce announced a € 8M series A round
in June 2016 only to declare bankruptcy 6 months later;
• Icelandic gaming company Plain Vanilla, makers of QuizUp, raised nearly €
7M in January 2016 and being acquired in December by its investor Glu
mobile;
• German FinTech company Payleven received almost € 9M in funding in
February and got acquired by SumUp only 2 months later;
• Bitcoin mining hardware maker KNC Miner from Stockholm received in
January € 2.8M in a series B but had to close down in August of 2016;
• Norwagian Norsk Titanium, a 3D printing company, raised 4 times capital in
2016, totaling at least € 26M;
• Iconomi, based in the Czech Republic, raised € 9.3M in an Initial Coin
Offering;
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT EUROPEAN VENTURE CAPITAL
33. 33
Scaleups, not startups, are generating added value,
create jobs, expand international and create economic
value for stakeholders and society. This group is
attracting the lion share of (venture) capital, in some
countries of up to 90% of all capital. In other words, we
use the Pareto distribution rule to create an accurate
view on the venturing landscape. Only deals of at least
$1M / € 750K are considered.
We encourage you to review the methodology to better
understand the numbers presented in this report. We use
a data-driven approach to track financing activity for
European tech companies.
Companies includes web, app, mobile, digital products
and services, software, marketplace, connected
hardware, data-driven and HardTech companies.
Companies that have their HQ or launched in Europe are
considered. LifeScience and BioTech (except software
solutions targeting this industry), non digital CleanTech,
eCommerce (Hallofresh, Zalando etc) and research
institutes are excluded.
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT METHODOLOGY
34. 34
Deals with a non-disclosed value or lacking value indication are not counted. If an amount is
described as a seven-figure number, the lowest possible value has been counted. Funding is
registered based on announcement date. All currencies (USD, GBP, CHF, SEK etc) are converted to
Euro using aonda.com. The number of employees is captured on the moment of fund raising and
based on the press release, LinkedIn, Xing, Viadeo or the company’s website.
The founding year and location is based on information in press releases, company website,
Crunchbase, LinkedIn or Xing. If deal information is being detected or corrected after closing the
month, quarter or year, it will be included in future reports. Funding of both private and public
companies are considered. Debt financing, IPOs, media for equity, crowdfunding, Initial Coin
Offering, private placements, post IPO equity, private equity, grants and convertible loans are
included.
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT METHODOLOGY
35. 35
THE CATEGORIES ARE:
Accountancy, AdTech, Aerospace, AgriTech, Automotive, Business Intelligence, Business Services,
CivicTech, Consumer Services, Cybersecurity, Document Management, eCommerce, EdTech,
Entertainment, FinTech, FoodTech, Gaming, HealthTech, HRTech, IoT, IT services, LegalTech,
Manufacturing, MediaTech, MICE, Mining & Environmental services, Mobility, MusicTech,
PropTech, Retail, Security, Semiconductors, Software development, SportTech, Supply Chain,
Telecom, Travel, Utilities and Virtual Reality
THE COUNTRIES ARE:
Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France,
Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands,
Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and
UK. Data of Turkey and Israel is being used as a benchmark for Europe.
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT METHODOLOGY
36. 36
Omar Mohout is a former technology entrepreneur currently active as Growth Engineer at Sirris.
Mohout is a widely published technology author, C-level advisor to high growth startups as well as
Fortune 500 companies and Professor of Entrepreneurship at Antwerp Management School. He is
author of 'Pricing Strategies for Startups', ‘The Belgian startup landscape’, ‘Crowdfunding in
Belgium’ and the popular 'Startup Master Class series'. A contributing author to the ‘100 Days
Digital Marketing Plan’ and ‘The Future of Business’ books.
Mohout is a columnist; Co-chair of the Circle Of Growth, Organizer of the Growth Hacking
Meetup, Co-founder of the #BeTech Community and Member of the Board of Directors at
Startups.be, Teamleader and Aproplan. He is also a mentor at Founder Institute, IdeaLabs,
Startathlon, Virtuology Academy, Flanders DC, Nexxworks and Belgium Ambassador at World
Startup Report.
Mohout is a keynote speaker and panellist on technology, entrepreneurship and innovation topics
at leading conferences.
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT ABOUT THE AUTHOR
37. 37
Sirris, the collective centre of the Belgian technology industry, helps companies with the
implementation of technological innovations, enabling them to strengthen their competitive
position over the long-term. Sirris helps you make the best technological choice and rapidly turn
your innovations into marketable products and services. The Sirris experts visit companies on site,
offer technological advice, launch innovation paths, and provide guidance to reach the
implementation phase. The aim is to find applicable solutions to the real challenges faced by
technology entrepreneurs and startups.
Sirris guides technology companies to a higher level of know-how and expertise in a wide range of
domains. The in-house experts provide a broad range of technological and go-to-market
knowledge. Where necessary, Sirris relies also on external knowledge partners, including
specialized companies, universities, knowledge centres, and research institutions.
For more information on how Sirris can help your company success, please visit www.sirris.be.
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT ABOUT SIRRIS
40. 40
No dataset is complete and this report provides an indication of reality only. Comparing to reports
of other providers on similar subjects is partly possible when taking into account the different
methodologies.
This report has been compiled for informational purpose only and should not be regarded as a
solicitation to invest in any entity.
This report relies on data and insights from a wide range of public and private sources and we
can’t be hold responsible for the completeness and accuracy of the information provided.
This report may freely be distributed, republished and posted as long as the content is not
modified, decompiled or reference to the source is being removed.
2016 EUROPEAN SCALE UP REPORT DISCLAIMER