Discover Europe's most promising early-stage startups
Track the movements of like-for-like startups across different sectors, curated by Sifted.
Which companies are eligible?
Sifted Scout is an early-stage startup sourcing tool, so only startups that have raised up to and including Series A investment are considered. Should a company on a given sector list raise a Series B or funding at a later stage, they will not be eligible for the next iteration of that said list when published in the future.
Additionally, companies must be independent (i.e. not acquired) and founded at the earliest by 2015.
How are companies evaluated and scored?
Companies are scored on a scale from 0.01 to 9.99 against stage, sector and time-sensitive benchmarks across the following categories: funding history, investor prominence, growth, traction and founder strength. The 20 companies with the highest scores within a given sector are ranked in order from 1 to 20.
As data points and benchmarks change, company scores will evolve over time. Additional signals such as ‘fundraising’ and ‘hiring’ also indicate a startup’s growth trajectory. As companies are evaluated against their competitors as opposed to the entire ecosystem, company scores across different sectors are not intended for comparison.
Generating a Sifted score for any given company in Europe is reliant on the availability of certain data inputs. Several information gaps result in an inability to hit the minimum score required for inclusion, meaning Sifted Scout does not claim to be exhaustive.
Signals
Strong investor(s):
Denotes whether a company has received funding from at least one strong investor. An investor is considered strong if it featured in the top 250 of Dealroom’s most prominent VC investors in EMEA list.
Serial founder(s)
Denotes whether at least one founder of a company has previously launched another business venture.
Hiring
Denotes whether a company is currently hiring. Either they have informed Sifted, or this was sourced via their company website or LinkedIn.
Fundraising
Denotes whether a company has informed us that they are actively fundraising.
What sources do we use to scout companies?
Sifted's analysts use company databases including Dealroom, Crunchbase and Net Zero Insights to scout companies across Europe, as well as tapping our extensive network of investors, accelerators, venture builders and universities that consume Sifted content on a daily basis. Every effort is made to verify company information via the Sifted for Startups programme and accrue additional, proprietary data points.
Disclaimer
Sifted content is provided for your general information purposes only. It does not constitute technical, financial or legal advice or any other type of advice and is not intended to be relied upon by users in making (or refraining from making) any specific investment or other decisions.