Europe has minted eight new unicorns in 2024, already putting 2023 to shame, when only seven joined the stable across the whole year (down from 47 in 2022).
The new billion-dollar-valued companies span a range of sectors from SaaS to autonomous vehicles (AVs), and point to a rosier economic picture in startup land than we’ve seen over the past 24 months of downturn.
One of the reasons for the increase compared to last year's numbers is the return of big funding rounds.
In 2023, just 86 startups raised more than $100m, according to Dealroom — a long drop from the 241 picked up during the heady days of 2021.
Things are looking more positive in 2024, with 59 companies bagging a $100m+ round so far this year — and there are more than five months left to play with.
That crop includes previously minted unicorns like French AI startup Mistral, German defence tech Helsing, UK neobank Monzo and Swedish steel producer H2 Green Steel. It also features some startups that have seen their valuations shoot past the golden $1bn mark for the first time.
So who are these new European unicorns? Sifted has tracked down the companies that have hit the milestone in 2024, and listed them below in chronological order. If there’s a company you think we’ve missed off the list, get in touch.
ElevenLabs — London / New York
Voice AI startup ElevenLabs has been on a wild ride for the past 18 months. It burst onto the European GenAI scene with text-to-speech and audio-to-audio language translation tech when it raised a $2m pre-seed in January 2023.
ElevenLabs followed that up with a $19m Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz, GitHub founder Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, a former machine learning director at Apple, just half a year later. Six months after that it had bagged another $80m — which also featured Sequoia Capital — and hit unicorn status.
It’s one of the global leaders in the GenAI audio space and has seen other startups build apps on top of its tech.
Quantinuum — UK
Quantinuum is a Cambridge-based quantum computing company that was formed with the merger of Cambridge Quantum Computing and Honeywell Quantum Solutions in 2021. It raised $300m and hit a $5.3bn valuation in January this year, in a round led by JPMorgan and featuring industrial giants Honeywell and Mitsui & Co.
DataSnipper — the Netherlands
DataSnipper is a platform that helps automate and speed up the auditing process for finance professionals.
A €92m Series B led by Index Ventures in February saw its valuation tick over the $1bn mark. After being founded in 2017, DataSnipper raised its first round, an undisclosed sum, from Insight Partners in 2022.
Pennylane — France
Pennylane is an accounting platform founded in 2020 that’s designed to improve workflows between enterprises and accountants.
It hit unicorn valuation after raising a €40m Series C in February, in an all-equity round led by UK investor DST Global, with participation from US VC giant Sequoia Capital.
The Series C took the startup’s total funding to $169m, according to Dealroom, and will be used to finance acquisitions as the company looks to expand its technology and services portfolio.
“What was at stake [with this Series C] was to have cash to do M&A,” says CEO Arthur Waller. “We have actors in front of us who have the money to acquire and we want to fight on equal terms. We want to be predators, not prey.”
Bending Spoons — Italy
Bending Spoons has built a suite of mobile apps for content creators — including photo-editing apps, motion graphics and typography apps. The company says it has around 500m users worldwide and is the owner of the note-taking app Evernote and events social media platform Meetup.
The startup became a unicorn after raising $155m in February, in a round led by Durable Capital Partners, which brought its valuation to $2.6bn. Existing investors Baillie Gifford, Cox Enterprises, NB Renaissance, NUO Capital and StarTIP were also involved in the round.
Bending Spoons also counts Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds on its cap table, with the actor participating in a $340m round in September 2022.
Founded in 2013, Bending Spoons was bootstrapped for six years before first tapping investors for cash in 2019. It’s since raised $635m, according to Dealroom.
Mews — the Netherlands
Amsterdam-based Mews is a property management platform for hoteliers.
It raised a $110m round in March to hit a valuation of $1.2bn. The round was led by Kinnevik and featured participation from Revaia, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Notion Capital and LGVP.
Pigment — France
Pigment provides enterprise customers with a platform that lets them visualise critical business data in real time, ranging from profit and revenue to burn rate and headcount.
It raised $145m and hit its unicorn valuation in April this year, in a Series D round led by US VC Iconiq Growth, following a $77m raise the previous May.
The startup told Sifted in April that it was focusing on expanding its North American business and investing in AI.
Pigment’s customers include UK consumer goods multinational Unilever, German pharmaceutical group Merck and US software company Datadog.
Wayve — UK
In May, AV startup Wayve raised the largest round for an AI startup in Europe ever when it picked up $1.05bn from investors including SoftBank, Nvidia and Microsoft.
The startup is building software for AVs and said the fresh funding would be used to develop its technology and launch its first commercial products to car makers.
Wayve is by far the best-funded AV startup in Europe — and along with several other players in the sector is making moves to commercialise its tech. It’s been reported that Wayve is in talks with several manufacturers about rolling out its tech in partnership with automakers.
The company did not disclose the new valuation, but it’s safe to say it’s well north of the $1bn mark, given the amount raised.
