The UK’s Allica Bank, a neobank for small businesses, tops this year’s Sifted 250 — a ranking of the 250 fastest-growing startups in Europe, in partnership with Zoom.
Companies were listed in order of highest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in revenue over a three year period.
Allica Bank, which focuses on serving SMEs with over 10 employees in the UK, sits on top with a CAGR of 1,438%. Founded in 2018 by serial entrepreneur Jason Scott and now run by former Revolut COO Richard Davies, it grew its revenue to £48.3m in the financial year to December 2022 from £204k two years prior, according to company filings.
It's the second time this year the company has finished on top of a Sifted Leaderboard, following its success on the Sifted 100: UK & Ireland back in March. Startups had to feature in their respective region’s leaderboard — all in their first year — in order to qualify for the Sifted 250.
Denmark’s kompasbank, which like Allica provides loans and other banking services to SMEs, is ranked second with a CAGR of 1,149%; Cambridge, UK-based Artios Pharma, a developer of novel cancer therapies finishes third with 697% growth.
10 fastest-growing companies in 2024
- Allica Bank — bank for SMEs (UK)
- kompasbank — bank for SMEs (Denmark)
- Artios Pharma — cancer therapeutics (UK)
- Finn — car subscription service (Germany)
- Orbem — AI-powered imaging for object scanning (Germany)
- Klimate — carbon removal strategies (Denmark)
- Kovalee — consumer app publisher (France)
- Swan — embedded banking player (France)
- Jeff — digital banking (Latvia)
- Dalma — pet insurtech (France)
For interviews with the top 10 startups and analysis exploring the factors that have propelled their rise, read Sifted's research report.
Fintech, climate startups do well
It likely won’t shock you to learn that London is home to the most companies on the ranking (57). Paris is a distant second with 19; Stockholm has 16; Berlin 13; and Milan 11.
The most dominant tech vertical is B2B SaaS (75 companies). The next most-represented is fintech (64), followed by climate tech (41), consumer (38), healthtech (21) and deeptech (11).
Looking at sectors, digital banking dominates with 18 companies — four of which ranked among the top 20 — followed by payments (11). And there are nine foodtech, digital health, HR tech and circular economy companies apiece.
Public funder the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) — with funds including EIT Food and EIT Health — is the most active investor in the 250, backing 22 companies. Next is Tech Nation (20) and Plug and Play (16), followed by Bpifrance and Innovate UK with 10 investments apiece.
A total of 1,735 investors backed the top 250 in total. 15 of these have at least six portfolio companies to boast about. The highest performing VCs were Paris-based Kima Ventures (eight), London-based Balderton Capital (seven) and its neighbour Index Ventures (six).
Methodology
Sifted’s Intelligence team used proprietary data and company filings to identify high-growth startups. Applications were accepted from February 1 to November 15.
To be eligible, companies had to meet the following criteria: headquartered in Europe (excluding Azerbaijan, Belarus, Israel, Russia and Turkey); founded in or after 2014; maximum headcount of 999; private and independent; majority of revenue must be generated by proprietary technology; at least three years of revenue data; and revenue (annualised if necessary) of at least €50k in the base year (2020, 2021 or 2022) and at least €500k in the latest financial year (2022, 2023 or 2024).
Companies were required to submit signed documentation to support disclosed financial information not publicly available.
