The technology sector leads the post-pandemic recovery in Europe: in the last year, between March 2020 and March 2021, 52 new unicorns emerged – emerging companies valued at more than 1,000 million dollars – in the Old Continent, almost a third of the total those estimated to have arisen in European countries (166), according to the British investment bank GP Bullhound, which specializes in financing technology companies.
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The momentum of digitization, electronic commerce, home delivery or fintech technologies has meant that in the last year – from March 2020 to March 2021 – there have been more European companies that reach this valuation of 1,000 million dollars (52) than those that achieved it in the previous two years: 32 until March 2020, and 22 until March 2019.
In total, the companies that achieved this status raised 94,000 million dollars (79,000 million euros, at the current exchange rate) together and add a total valuation of more than 800,000 million dollars (670,000 million euros), practically double the year previous (419,000 million dollars), according to the Titans of Tech report prepared by this investment bank.
The Dutch payment company Adyen is, according to this study, the most valued European startup, at about 61,000 million dollars (51,000 million euros), above Spotify, which would be the second with 43,000 million (36,000 million euros) valuation.
VARIETY OF SECTORS
On the other hand, another outstanding element is the variety of sectors with high-growth companies in Europe. Of the 52 new unicorns identified by the study, 21 are business software companies, 13 are fintech companies, 7 are platforms (marketplaces, including Idealista), 6 are e-commerce companies and 4 are entertainment companies.
Israel is the country that has contributed the most companies to this list in the last year (12), although by total number the first European unicorn generator is the United Kingdom, with 37, followed by Israel with 32 and Germany with 23.
Likewise, among the most thriving European startups, three companies stand out that have achieved this assessment with unusual speed: the German ghost supermarket company Gorillas – which has just announced its entry into Spain with several stores in Madrid and an ambitious expansion plan – capable of reaching it in less than a year, the digital events startup Hopin, and the British used car sales platform Cazoo, both capable of reaching it in a year.
Jobandtalent, Wallapop, RavenPack, Codigames and TravelPerk, next Spanish candidates for unicorn
Among those new European unicorns, GP Bullhound includes the Spanish real estate portal Idealista –whose value reached 1,300 million euros when it was acquired by the Swedish fund EQT from Apax Partners in September 2020-, and highlights Glovo, the protagonist of a great round in this start of 2021, as a company that considered among its candidates for unicorn in 2019 and joined that list in 2020.
