Munich’s Finn, a car subscription platform, tops this year’s Sifted 250 — a ranking of the 250 fastest-growing startups in Europe in order of highest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in revenue over a three year period.
Finn recorded a 1,078% CAGR, moving up three places from last year’s ranking position and growing its revenue from €3.2m to €444.3m between 2022 and 2024. Earlier this year, the company came top of Sifted's regional leaderboard focused on German-speaking and central European countries.
Finn customers can choose from a range of fossil fuel and electric vehicles from over 30 car manufacturers — from Alfa Romeo to Volkswagen — and monthly subscriptions cover insurance, maintenance, registration and taxes (but not fuel or charging).
Customers can go to checkout in less than five minutes, says Maximilian Wühr, its 30 year-old CEO and cofounder, after which Finn delivers the cars to customer doorsteps. “This simplicity and transparency are often not available in the traditional leasing or rental world,” Wühr says.
Placing second in the ranking is Sweden’s Yazen, which describes itself as a one-stop-shop for weight loss, making it easier for customers to access medical services, health and fitness professionals, as well as educational programmes and community groups. The startup recorded a massive increase in returns over two years, from €200k in 2022 to €15.9m in 2024.
Third is Germany’s Tl;dv, which has developed an AI notetaker that companies use to record their interviews. The remote-first office puts a strong emphasis on boosting “organic growth” by creating workplace-parody videos, which the company uploads to LinkedIn every week.
The UK leads with 85 companies on the leaderboard (up from 68 in 2024). Startups from there, Germany and France account for the majority of the ranking (55%).
Top five fastest-growing companies in 2025
1/ Finn — car subscription startup (Germany)
2/ Yazen — medical weight loss platform (Sweden)
3/ Tl;dv — AI notetake for meetings (Germany)
4/ Vertice — ”spend optimisation” platform (UK)
5/ Electra — fast-charging EV networks (France)
For interviews with the top startups and analysis exploring the factors that have propelled their rise, read Sifted's research report.
Fintech, AI startups climb
Fintech takes the sector crown this year with 78 companies (31.2% of the total) — up from 64 in 2024. Business-to-business software was the second most represented niche with 65 companies (vs 75 last year).
Climate tech startups, which have struggled for investment this year, were way down, with only nine featuring in the ranking (vs 32 last year.).
Seventy-five startups feature on the Sifted 250 for a second consecutive year. The biggest climber on last year is UK smart energy platform Switchee, rising 159 places to 10th.
Eighteen companies in the ranking are “AI-native”, meaning they develop generative AI software or hardware (there were only seven of these companies on last year’s ranking).
This year’s list also features 11 unicorns: Flo Health (39th), IQM Quantum Computers (51st), Synthesia (57th), Einride (138th), Monzo (169th), Zilch (185th), Wayflyer (211th), Marshmallow (217th), Multiverse Computing (224th), Tines (225th) and Cleo (229th).
Fifty-seven of the 250 startups on this year’s leaderboard are profitable — 20 more than last year’s edition.
How startups placed on the top 250
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; 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.
