The epitome of the Covid-boosted rocket ship, online events platform Hopin gained its spot on Europe's unicorn list just eight months after launch.

In 2020, it was Europe's fastest-growing company — but will it be able to sustain that growth as vaccines roll out and some events, perhaps, return to physical venues?

Read more: Online events startup Hopin hits $2.1bn valuation just 8 months after launch

Insurtech Zego, which was the first in the UK to gain its own insurance licence in 2019, made some interesting strategic moves in 2020. It bought Drivit, a telematics company, in order to revolutionise commercial motor insurance; partnered with Broker Network and Compass Networks to access 60% of the UK independent broking community; and now covers all of Tier's escooters. What will it do next? “The Little Prince made me cry” — Bookclub with Sten Saar, cofounder of Zego

18 fintechs that investors think will thrive post-lockdown

Cera is one of the best-funded healthtechs that focus on older people, in February 2020 raising $70m in an equity and debt round led by KairosHQ. Its two-pronged strategy involves partnerships with the NHS and local authorities, and acquiring existing, profitable care companies. With an ageing population to look out for, Cera is the one to watch.

Read more: Fixing an ageing approach to care

Revolut almost needs no introduction, as one of the fastest-growing digital banking apps in Europe. Indeed, it came first in the UK in terms of jobs advertised in 2020.

Having begun as a travel currency-exchange card, the company has since expanded aggressively into a full range of services, including cryptocurrency and stockbroking services. Led by Nikolay Storonsky, the company reports having 11m customers, and is adding around 11k accounts a day.

According to an analysis by Sifted last year, Revolut leads its peers Monzo, N26 and Starling in terms of downloads, deposits and revenues — even when adjusted for time.

Its 2020 fundraise of £460m also valued the company at $5.5bn, placing it first in the UK in terms of investment raised that year. Revolut now has ambitions of gaining a UK bank licence and conquering the US and Asia.

However, amid fast growth, Revolut has also been stung by complaints of a toxic corporate culture, while The Telegraph claimed the company turned off a system designed to prevent money laundering for three months in 2018 (Revolut denies both).

Read more: Digital banks Monzo, Revolut, Starling and N26 compared

Revolut staff vent frustration over share options

Europe is beating the US in fintech innovation, says Revolut’s Nikolay Storonsky

OakNorth is largely comprised of a bog standard bank, which has had a meteoric rise granting loans to small businesses.

OakNorth Bank has a large loan book, with around £3bn in outstanding loans at the last count, and just two defaults. The bank made £66m in profit last year, making it one of the most profitable financial newcomers in Europe.

Still, OakNorth’s $2.8bn valuation largely rests in its “credit science” arm. The company white labels its credit-analysis technology (dubbed Acorn) to non-UK banks, with a handful of clients now signed up.

SoftBank’s Vision Fund led a high-profile funding round into the fintech in 2019.

Read more: Seven OakNorth power-players pulling the strings behind the scenes

Babylon Health has made itself plenty of friends in high places — and enemies too. The digital health company, which provides online consultations and has a symptom-checking app, has become known for making bold claims about what its AI can achieve and for butting heads with GPs in the UK. It's also been used as a poster child for digital transformation in healthcare by the likes of UK health minister Matt Hancock and raised huge amounts of funding from Saudi Arabia's investment fund.

Still, squabbles with UK doctors don't seem to be where Babylon is focusing its attention now: it's planning to launch in the US.

In late 2020, the Asian-focused food delivery app HungryPanda raised a $70m Series C round led by Kinnevik. There's clearly a huge market for it — it operates in 47 cities across the world — and the startup plans to double its team. The app's in Mandarin, so in a saturated food delivery market, it's occupying a very secure niche that will continue to do it good as food delivery becomes the norm.

The not-so-niche food delivery player to watch: HungryPanda raises $70m

The Goldman Sachs-backed digital lender is now worth over £1bn following a secondary sale — having only raised £4m in equity to date.

But it’s long been one of those rare fintechs that’s actually profitable, previously trumping the combined profits of Azimo and Zopa. Phenomenally, it was started by two young graduates in their mid-20s in 2014 (who placed on Forbes’ 30 under 30 in 2018) with a mission to undercut traditional banks by fast-tracking applications and offering competitive rates. Today it approves a new loan every 30 seconds.

The company's £1bn+ valuation is a big jump from the £500m it was last rumoured to be priced at when Balderton led a secondary sale in 2018.

It’s rumoured to be expanding into the US and new investors Stefan Glänzer and Eileen Burbidge — Goldman Sachs and Passion Capital’s top partners — are investing in a personal capacity.

Get the full story here.

Millennial-friendly neobank Monzo is the darling of London’s fintech world, onboarding over 4m customers at the last count. The startup is best known for removing the hassle from personal finances, as well as progressive features like gambling-blocks.

Despite its fans and unicorn valuation, however, the bank is renowned for its “disrupt-now-and-make-money-later” approach. Monzo’s losses climbed to £115m in the fiscal year ending February 2020, outspending both competitors Starling and Revolut.

Commentators suspect this has played into a dramatic rehaul of the executive team, including a new CEO to replace founder Tom Blomfield, who appears to be quitting the fintech due to his suffering mental health. These results may have influenced the stark dip in Monzo’s valuation, which saw it cling onto unicorn valuation at £1.25bn.

But, while sceptics of its business model abound, there are also some positive signs to flag. Monzo’s unit economics finally entered the green in February 2019, with each customer making £4 a year on average in revenue. It’s still small, but it’s a good improvement from the net loss per customer of £15 they recorded in 2018. The company has also launched two subscription products, hoping customers will pay to use premium services.

Read more: Inside Monzo 2.0: Who’s running the show now? Monzo founder Tom Blomfield is quitting the digital bank after asking execs for “help” Who is Monzo’s new CEO, TS Anil? There’s something about Monzo

Simulation software startup Improbable has always had an aura of mystery about it — partly because it operated in stealth for a long time, gained a billion-dollar valuation not long after launching and has landed numerous deals with the military.

Founder Herman Narula has sold investors including SoftBank and Andreessen Horowitz on his vision to "build the Matrix". The big question is whether he can actually pull it off.

Starling is the youngest of the consumer-focused digital challenger banks. Although founded in 2014, it launched in 2017, after Revolut in 2015 and Monzo in 2016. It’s also smaller than both in terms of the number of users.

But in a fiercely competitive sector (Monzo’s Tom Blomfield worked at Starling before staging a walkout of top executives and forming the rival bank) Starling is on track to be the first to actually make a profit.

This is due to success outside just retail banking in the ream of business accounts and offering banking-as-a-service products to other financial institutions. There are also rumours of a planned IPO in 2022.

The company is 20% owned by staff with the rest owned by two main backers — Austrian-born investor Harry McPike and Merian Global Investors.

Related: Starling, Revolut and Monzo’s annual results compared

Inside Anne Boden’s Starling

Smart chip company Graphcore started making the kind of intelligence processing units that AI companies would need before being an AI company was really a thing. Now, of course, every other startup likes to see themselves that way.

That makes Bristol-based Graphcore hot property. It has now shipped tens of thousands of its microchips, landed deals with Microsoft and Dell and attracted top investors like Atomico and Sequoia.

Read more: Graphcore takes aim at Nvidia with new AI chip

It would be hard to jumble more jargon into one company's Google ad word listing than Snyk's: 'Dev First Security - Securing Cloud Native Apps'.

In plain speak, London-based Snyk helps developers find vulnerabilities in their code and keep businesses secure. In 2020, the startup raised £280m, placing it third in the UK in terms of investment raised behind Revolut and Cazoo.