2020 European Tech Statistics, Trends and Data: The Ultimate List

Looking for the latest European tech stats and trends? We’ve got you covered. We’ve collected the latest European technology statistics, trends, and data to help in your quest.

2020 is going to be a turning-point year. When (not if, but when) the Covid19 epidemic is over, things are going to change.

I, like many, have been thinking about what those changes are going to look like non-stop since this whole thing started. I wrote some of those thoughts down here. I’ve also been working on a spreadsheet (now open for collaboration) to try and make a sense of the mess this virus is going to leave behind––and the opportunities it will undoubtedly create.

But before I keep losing myself in the chaotic mess that predicting the future invariably is, I thought we might all need a refresher on what our past looked like. That’s why I’m writing this article.

The thought behind it is: Looking at the different facts, statistics and trends related to European Tech in the last few years might help clarify what I think about the future. So I read Atomico's 'State of European Tech' report again, and studied it more closely. I did some additional research, and tried to compile all the important facts regarding our ecosystem over the last few years.

Here’s the result:

(Disclaimer: I’m still trying to work through all this information, trying to make sense of what trends are going to change for the better, which for the worse, and which are going to stay more or less the same. I have no magic eight ball and, as I said, I’m done trying to predict things. For now, all you’re going to get are facts and figures.)

Key Facts

First things first. A summary. Lots of people are not the kind to go deep, __deep__ into the numbers (and make no mistake, this is what's gonna happen in this post). That is perfectly okay. This compendium is for you. Now, if you do like detail, just stick around.

  • In the period between 2015 and 2019, 99 companies were backed by VCs for 1B or more.
  • Seven of Europe's Countries attracted $1b+ capital per year.
  • In total, there has been a grand total of $113B cumulative funding for Tech related companies.
  • Within those $133B –– There have been 40 $100M+ Mega Rounds
  • Interestingly enough, 21% of funding rounds had 1+ US or Asian Investor
  • When it comes to gender diversity, only 8.4% Capital invested in 2019 was directed towards mixed/women led teams.
  • 148 Companies have had exits for more than $100M
  • When it comes to the sheer number of talent available, Europe is thriving. There are around 6.1 million professional developers currently residing in the EU (vs 4.3m for the US.)
  • Bonus –– According to Mind The Bridge's "Tech Scaleup Europe" 2019 Report:
    • The sheer number of European startups has been growing yearly by around 20% (since 2014 –– +13% in 2018, equaling 1,400 startups that year.)

Now that our little summary is out of the way, let's go ahead and dive into the different areas and their numbers.

Investors

Although founders are the engine of any Tech market, Investors play a crucial role. We all know that. But what do the numbers say on the matter? Who are these people?

  • European VCs are either on par or outperforming indices for both US VCs and European Private Equity. Let's look at this graph:

  • Government agency investment in VCs dropped around $1 billion in 2018 but, there's been a 203% increase on pension fund investment.
  • In 2019, 2,600 unique institutional investors were involved in European deals.
  • Corporate investors participated in 1 out 5 deals in 2019.
  • As we mentioned above, there's been a rising interest from investors from abroad. 21% of European rounds had at least one US or Asian investor.
    • In 2015, the number was closer to 10%.

Although there aren't a lot of numbers regarding fundraising activity in 2019, we can say that European VCs raised more than $13B during 2018 and that, during the first six months of 2019, that number was $7.5B.

Let’s Get Granular

  • Over 40% of capital raised in 2018 is represented by founds of €250M+
  • In turn, 66%of all VC funds raised are from funds with a size of >€100M.
  • By H1 2019, VC funds closed in Europe had a median size of $53 million.

Let's look at the median and mean fund sizes at final closing in the previous three years:

  • 2018
    • Median: 106M
    • Mean: 50M
  • 2017
    • Median: 112M
    • Mean:48M
  • 2016
    • Median: 92M
    • Mean: 43M

Funds allocated by government agencies to European VCs since 2014 amount to $9 billion. In turn, Corporate investors account for 6.2 billion and private individuals for 4.4 billion.

Looking at different regions:

  • UK-based VCs have raised $17B in cumulative funds since 2014
    • France-based VCs have raised $11.7B.
    • Germany-based VCs, $7.6B.
    • And Italian VCs have raised $1.2B.

On a population-adjusted basis:

As you can see, VCs based in Luxembourg and Switzerland have quite a bit of funds, but the Netherlands and the UK don't lag much behind on a per capita basis.

In other news –– 1,500+ unique institutions have made at least one investment into rounds of less than $10M and more than 100 institutions have invested in a round of $100M or more.

In turn over 2,600 unique institutions participated in one or more deals in 2019. This number could go up even higher when adjusted for reporting lag.

Throughout the last few years, there were a few firms leading mega rounds on their own. The most active investors (at least when it comes to late-stage European tech) are Softbank (and its Vision Fund), Insight Venture Partners, Kinnevik and DST Global.

According to Tech.eu’s Blooming Late Report:

  • Softbank leads with nearly €4 billion invested into late-stage European tech from 2015 to Q3 2019.
  • Insight Venture Partners accounts for about €1.4 billion of the funding money during that time period
    • This is a 180% difference between the two.

Although not clear from the graph, Tech.eu’s report also tells us that:

  • 62.9% of all late-stage financing rounds come from single-investors.
  • 17.4% involve two investors
  • 9.1% involve three investors
  • 10.7% involve more than three separate investors.

Investments

Now that we've covered what the make-up of European investors (and their funds) is like, let's move ahead and take a look at what their investments are.

A Birds-Eye View on the Subject

According to Atomico, founders have raised a record amount of money in 2019, and there has been a record number of mega rounds ($100M+). 40% of all funding raised in the first 9 months of 2019, actually.

This record number reached $39.8 billion. Around one quarter of all the money invested during 2019 went to British startups.

Of that money, London alone took $9.7 billion –– more than twice the amount raised by Berlin's startups ($4.5 billion). Nearly three times of the money raised by Parisian companies ($3.3 billion)

At the time of their report's release Europe was, in fact, on track to reach $34.3B invested in European tech in 2019 only.

Capital Invested in Europe

Q2 2019 was the best EVER when it comes to capital raised. In those few months, founders raised $11.6 billion. What is driving this growth? Maybe the fact that 36% of all funding raised in 2019 by European tech companies was comprised of deals of over $100 million. If we look at the big outliers, we see that:

  • The Top 3 Deals in the first nine months of 2019 alone equal $2.4 billion.

In that 36% made up of mega-rounds, six of those rounds were of more than $500 million each:

  • Northvolt
    • Sweden, Stockholm
    • Growth Equity
    • $1000M
    • June 2019
  • Deliveroo
    • United Kingdom, London
    • Series G
    • $575M
    • May 2019
  • UiPath
    • Romania, Bucharest
    • Series D
    • $568M
    • April 2019
  • Babylon Health
    • United Kingdom, London
    • Series C
    • $550M
    • August 2019
  • Veeam
    • Switzerland, Baar
    • Growth Equity
    • $500M
    • January 2019
  • FlixBus
    • Germany, Munich
    • Series F
    • $500M
    • July 2019

To set the stage a little bit –– according to the Blooming Late Report mentioned before:

  • In 2015 (& 2016) there were 14 late-stage rounds, totalling €3-4 billion respectively.
  • In 2017, that numbered nearly doubled.
  • In 2018, things didn’t change much from the prior year; there were 26-28 rounds, €5-7 billion, respectively.

On the other hand, according to Tech.eu’s “The European tech investment landscape” report:

  • When looking at Q1, Q2 & Q3 of 2019, there were a total of 52 late-stage funding rounds
    • A 60% increase from all of 2018.
  • In that same period, the total funding size amounted to €12 billion. That’s an almost 80% increase from the year prior.

For a bit more detail––let’s look at this graph:

(Source: Blooming Late Report)

When it comes to Angel investment, the numbers are interesting too. In 2018, for example, these types of investors were responsible for $8.6B of the raise capital.

  • In 2019, 21% of all founders invested back into the ecosystem. That's a 4% increased when compared with the 2015-2018 period (17%)
  • The biggest angel investors come from the UK (125 million invested), Germany (99 million) and Spain (67 million).

Europe & The World

As mentioned before, US and Asian investors have played a big part in 2019 in European founder's capital raising. What is interesting to note, is that they've been instrumental when it comes to rounds of over $100M. In fact, 90% of all $100M+ rounds raised in 2019 involves at least one investor from the US or Asia.

To set the stage –– According to data from Pitchbook & CB Insights:

  • $132.1 billion of venture capital was invested in the US in 2018.
  • Rounds sized $100 million and above are becoming a ‘new normal’. In the US, the total number of said rounds nearly tripled between 2016 and 2018.
  • Around €25 billion was invested in Europe by private capital in 2018.

Internationally shared-funding aside, let's compare the numbers for Europe to those of the other two big players in the world.

  • Europe
    • 2015 - 15.3B
    • 2019 - 34.3B
    • Increase: 124% (and 39% since 2018)
  • Asia
    • 2015 - 49B
    • 2019 - 62.5B
    • With a peak of 117.8B in 2018
    • Increase: 128%
    • 2015 - 79.8B
    • 2018 (peak) - 118.2B
    • 2019 - 116.7B
    • Increase: 148%

On other news, a recent Crunchbase article explains that though EU and US start-ups share an, on average, similar size, US scale-ups tend to have much more growth over-time. Take a look at this graph:

Regarding the number of total startups –– the US has 3 times more than the EU. China, too, surpassed Europe. The Asian nation has 40% more startups which, in turn, are fuelled by over 2.5x the capital.

Finally, and regarding the GDP percentage invested into the startup market, Europe lags behind China and the US. The numbers are:

  • Europe: 0.53%
  • China: 1.34%
  • US: 3.58%

Investment by Industry

Let's take a look at some of the more important industries when it comes to European Tech.

  • Fintech
    • Has raised over $9071 Million in 2019 with a 2015-2019 cumulative of $24730 million.
  • CleanTech / Energy
    • 2019: $3080 million
    • 2015-2019 Cumulative: $7104 million.
  • Food
    • 2019: $2289 million
    • 2015-2019 Cumulative: $7601 million
  • Media
    • 2019 $1290 million.
    • 2015-2019 Cumulative: $6097 million.
  • Transportation
    • 2019: $2306 million.
    • 2015-2019 Cumulative: $9591 million.
  • Enterprise Software
    • 2019: $7505 million.
    • 2015-2019 Cumulative: $22156 million.
  • Deep Tech
    • Investments into European deep tech companies are on track to break another record of $8.4B in 2019, up from $6.7B in 2018 and $3.0B in 2015. If we break that down, the numbers look like this:
      • AI (2019)
        • $4.9 billion
        • (451 deals).
      • Big Data (2019)
        • $2.577 billion
        • (175 deals)
      • Computer Vision (2019)
        • $1.548B
        • (71 deals)

When it comes to Legaltech, the numbers are interesting. A recent Thomson Reuters report found out that:

  • 80% of all the funding has been raised in the last three years.
  • There was a record amount of funding raised in the UK. £62m in 2019, to be precise, adding to a total pool of £260m.

Investment By Geography

The total number of companies that have raised money since 2015 amounts to +13,000. In fact, here's a graph showing the top 10 hubs by numbers of unique funded companies:

In terms of cumulative investment since 2015, we see that +$10 billion comes from Europe's top 3 countries.

  • UK
    • 2019: $11117 Million
    • 2018: $7517 Million
  • Germany
    • 2019: $5854 Million
    • 2018: $4700 Million
  • France
    • 2019: $4774 Million
    • 2018: $3363 Million

If we zoom in on the UK, we know that:

  • 95 companies were valued at $250-$800m in 2019 alone. That is a 27% increase from the year prior.
  • This ecosystem boats 77 unicorns as of 2019. That makes it #3 in the world under this metric, only behind the US and China.
  • 35% of Europe and Israel’s 169 unicorns have been created in the UK.

In terms of capital invested and number of deals, the top 10 hubs for 2019 are:

  • London
    • $8203 Million
    • N. Deals: 788
  • Berlin
    • $3932 Million
    • N. Deals: 249
  • Stockholm
    • $3139 Million
    • N. Deals: 177
  • Paris
    • $2982 Million
    • N. Deals: 300
  • Munich
    • $1078 Million
    • N. Deals: 67
  • Bucharest
    • $762 Million
    • N. Deals: 23
  • Barcelona$668 Million
    • $668 Million
    • N. Deals: 108
  • Helsinki
    • $628 Million
    • N. Deals: 56
  • Madrid
    • $509 Million
    • N. Deals: 83
  • Cambridge
    • $485 Million
    • N. Deals: 28

Take a look at this graph from the TechNation 2020 Report:

Diversity & Inclusion

Diversity is a touchy subject. Interesting, but ripe for controversy. So we're going to refrain from commenting here. (If interested in Seedtable's take on the matter, you can look at our take on it)

When breaking down data by socioeconomic background:

  • 81% of founders surveyed told us they were living comfortably before they founded their company, against a European norm of 39%.
  • When it comes to education, 82.3% of all founders reported having a university education (bachelor's degree or higher).

When breaking down the data by race:

  • 43% of Black/African/Caribbean founders have experienced discrimination
    • of which 80% link it to their ethnicity.
  • Black founders made up only 1% (0.9%) of our more than 1,200 founder respondents to Atomico's Diversity and Inclusion Survey.

When breaking down the data by gender:

  • When it comes to men vs women led-teams, Atomico's report finds that, during 2019, 92% of all funding went to all-men teams. Also there seems to be mixed interest (gender-wise) when talking about diversity-led events
  • 63% of women VCs told us they increased their focus on attending events with stronger participation of diverse founders, though only 36% of men told us they had.
  • 23% of European quantum companies had a mixed or woman-led founding team,
    • more than double the European average of 13%.
  • Women actually account for more than half of the population of scientists and engineers in Lithuania, Bulgaria, Latvia and Denmark

We just mentioned Atomico's founder survey, but it is worth taking a closer look. For the Diversity and Inclusion sub-section of their 2019 State of European Tech report, Atomico polled over 1,200 European Tech Founders and asked them a bunch of questions. Here are some interesting numbers:

  • 21% of all founders who responded are women, though they make up only 15% of founder respondents who have raised external capital.
  • Racial-diversity-wise :
    • Looking at the bigger picture –– only 35% of the EU-28 population aged 25-54 have attended a university in the form of tertiary education or higher
  • When it comes to funding for startups, the numbers are:
    • 92% of money invested goes to all-men teams.
    • Size-round varies with the gender diversity of the founding team. According to Atomico, "there is a greater level of diversity at round sizes of less than $10M" and "larger rounds are typically raised by founding teams that are all men."

But, interestingly enough, let's look at some examples of the population percentages for women scientists and engineers in some European countries.

  • Lithuania: 57% Female (vs 43% Male)
  • Bulgaria: 52% Female (vs 48% Male)
  • Latvia: 52% Female (vs 48% Male)
  • Denmark: 51: Female (vs 49% Male)
  • UK: 41% Female (vs 41% Male)
  • Finland: 29% Female (vs 71% Male)

And, finally, when it comes to gender composition at the executive level, 11 out of 12 executives are men.

Talent

To finish, let's move away from the diversity & inclusion subject and take a closer look at what we know about the Talent (founders and employees) partaking in the European tech ecosystem:

  • When it comes to Seed Stage startups, 40% of them have a founding team aged 26-30.
  • Only 7% of founding teams in CE are over 40 years old.
    • On the other hand, in countries such as France that number is closer to 20%

In the UK, for example, there has been a 40% increase in employed tech talent (in the last 2 years).

  • A total of 2.93million jobs created.

That number amounts to 9% of the UK’s national workforce.

But the UK isn’t the only place where Tech talent is taking over the workforce. According to Eurostat (with records measuring up to 2018):

  • In the European Union as a whole, 5.8% of the workforce is employed in “high- and medium-high technology manufacturing sectors and knowledge-intensive service sectors”.
  • The top 5 countries being
    • Slovenia (10.2%)
    • Germany (9.9%)
    • Hungary (9.9%)
    • Romania (6.4%)
    • Austria (6.3%)

When talking about developers, Atomico's survey found out that 11% of professionals identify as freelancers (compared to the US' 6%.) In fact, the numbers of developers in Europe vs the US tells an interesting story.

  • 2019
    • Europe: 6.1 million
    • US: 4.3 million
  • 2018
    • Europe: 5.7 million
    • US: 4.4 million
  • 2017
    • Europe: 5.5 million
    • US: 4.4 million

And, if we break down what that number looks like for the top European regions, the numbers show that there has been a steady increase of developers across the board.

  • UK
    • 2018: 830500
    • 2019: 849600
  • France
    • 2018: 491800
    • 2019: 533300
  • Spain
    • 2018: 308500
    • 2019: 323300
  • Sweden
    • 2018: 166800
    • 2019: 179100
  • Finland
    • 2018: 81200
    • 2019: 89600