Young startups — those launched in 2023 or 2024 — have raised a total of €3.1bn so far in 2024, according to Sifted data.
More than half (51.5%) of the total funding raised was secured by companies using AI as their core tech — despite AI startups only closing 9.8% of the 686 rounds announced. The three largest deals for startups launched after 2023 are all foundational AI: Mistral (€600m between Series B and debt), Poolside ($500m Series B) and H (formerly Holistic AI, $220m seed round) raised 40% of funding raised by companies founded in 2023 or 2024.
It has shades of the recent online groceries boom of 2021 and 2022; but generally, previous examples of startups finding lots of capital right from the off are limited to a breakout market leader in a specific sector — 1KOMMA5° (solar energy), Electra (EVs), Newcleo (nuclear energy) and Helsing (defence tech), which all received large amounts shortly after incorporation.
It’s the same story for more moderate round sizes. Excluding disproportionately large deals (those that sit above 75% of all young rounds), AI companies still come out top for both deal count and total funding at early stage.
Case in point: Europe’s largest pre-seed round this year belongs to Convergence, an AI personal assistant builder launched in 2024, which closed a €12m deal led by Balderton Capital.
Hot spots of activity also exist within the application layer, including data & analytics, sales & customer service, developer tools and productivity apps. Average funding for these companies is lower, however, as they don’t require as much capital as those building foundational models.
Outside of AI, healthtech appears four times in the top ten funding rounds by size — all in drug discovery and biotech — with rounds for Alys Pharma (seed, $100m), Calluna Pharma (€75m Series A), Neurosterix ($63m), and Bioptimus ($35m).
Most deals for ‘young’ startups happen in the UK (165), though France is taking the lion’s share of funding by a margin of €1.24bn. Switzerland is Europe’s third-best funded young hub — dominating the healthtech vertical — ahead of Germany and Sweden.
Leading accelerator programmes Y Combinator and Antler have backed the most companies this year founded in either 2023 or 2024, but Europe’s top investors are taking notice early too: three-quarters of the investments (9 of 12) announced by LocalGlobe this year have been for young companies.
*Additional charting by Hessa Alabbas
