Two European companies are producing more successful startup founders than any other on the continent: UK deeptech Improbable and Swedish fintech giant Klarna.
That's according to a new report from VC firm Antler, which identified the world's "real founder factories" — companies that act as talent conveyor belts, whose alumni go on to found their own successful startups.
Most of the top names are American, including Riot Games and LiveRamp, but Improbable and Klarna are Europe's standout performers. Tracking which companies' alumni founders go on to reach Series A specifically, Antler found Klarna leads in Europe with 14, followed by Improbable with eight.
The findings echo a similar analysis by VC firm Accel, which found that Klarna, Spotify and Deliveroo produce more second-generation startups than any other unicorns in the region.
But the bigger finding in Antler's report is about why certain companies work so well as training grounds.
Antler analysed 51,722 startups in the UK, Germany, France and Sweden that raised a seed round between 2010 and 2021.
The key finding: employees who worked at a startup as it scaled from seed to Series C are nearly twice as likely to go on to build startups that themselves reach Series A.
On average, around 23% of European startups secure Series A funding, according to Antler. But for founders with direct experience working at a startup as it scaled from seed to Series C, that figure jumps to 45.6%. "No other previous employment or experience comes close," the report states.
The research shows that investors are overrating big names, says Christoph Klink, a partner at Antler. “They should actually be paying more attention to the time a founder spent at a Series B logistics startup that's far less mainstream," he says. "We had this feeling for a long time and we’re a little surprised to see it confirmed so heavily in the data.”
Working at a unicorn just before its IPO, the report adds, is less valuable to a future founder than fighting through a tricky Series A round.
"The task for Europe's investors is to update their filters to find these founders and back them early,” Klink says.
