Meet the 13 new European 'unicorn' startups that were valued over $1 billion in the last year
European tech is booming. Over the last year, 13 startups became unicorns — companies with $1 billion-plus valuations — according to research bank GP Bullhound.
It's a marked increase from a year prior, when just 3 new unicorns were created.
And in 2013, when the term "unicorn" was first coined, just four unicorns "were born per year in the last decade" worldwide.
Of course, there's still a long way to go to catch up with the US — as Quartz notes, Facebook alone is worth twice as much as every single European unicorn put together. And in the same timeframe, the US produced 22 unicorns. But nonetheless, in Europe right now, things are looking up.
Pictured: An average European tech CEO right now.
1. Adyen
Adyen is a payments company that raised $250 million in December 2014. Investors include General Atlantic, Index Ventures, and Felicis Ventures, Fortune reported at the time — at a $1.5 billion valuation. Its founders, Pieter van der Does and Arnout Schuijff are both Dutch, and it now has more than 3,5000 merchants in 187 countries on the platform, including Spotify, Burberry, and Facebook.
In a recent interview with Tech.eu, van der Does said an IPO or exit isn't on the cards. "If you look at what we’re doing now, at our hyper-growth – we’re doubling in size every year and had about €150 million in revenue in 2014 – then it wouldn’t be a very logical thing for us to do. If you are convinced that the books are going to show this kind of growth in the next few years, then it’s something that should be considered in a few years."
2. BlaBlaCar
A French rideshare service, BlaBlaCar lets users coordinate on lifts — setting up travellers who are going in the same direction. The rider gets a cheap trip, and the vehicle owner saves on petrol — but they don't make enough off petrol to fall foul of taxi regulation like Uber.
In July 2014, it raised $100 million in a round led by Index Ventures, which was at the time the biggest French VC funding round of all time.
3. Delivery Hero
Delivery Hero is going from strength to strength, and closed a fresh $110 million round of funding in early June — making up $1 billion of funding overall, $600 million of which came this year alone. The company is now worth $3.2 billion....MORE
So what does the German startup do? Well, it has a series of apps and local websites that partner with local restaurants in different countries — 34 at the last count. In the UK, it operates as Hungry House, for example, while in Korea, it's YoGiYo. It now enjoys $165 million monthly sales.
CEO Niklas Östberg hails from Switzerland.
