Numbers crunched on 3 key european tech ecosystems

Snapshot of 3 key European startups hubs: Berlin, London &

Stockholm

by@ciaranoleary (berlinvc.com) & @jaderead5; VCs at Earlybird

Comparing advanced companies, capital raised & age profile of ecosystems to recent large European exits

Based on the debate “is a large Berlin exit overdue or not” we crunched some numbers on Berlin and other selected key tech hubs in Europe

We wrote a guest post on TechCrunch that contains more detail / context. We created this slide deck for those just interested in the data.

Age profile of the “advanced”* cohort of startups in each

ecosystem

* Startups HQd in each tech hub that have raised at least one double digit million round from well known venture funds. Data source is Crunchbase, googling, Quora,etc. We are aware the data is far from perfect – but we hope it is “directionally” correct if you look at the overall picture.

Berlin’s advanced startups have a median age of only 3.5 years

London’s advanced startups have a median age of around 7 years

Stockholm’s advanced startups have a median age of around 6 years

There are plenty of great companies across all of Europe; their median age is also around 6 years

Differences in age of ecosystems can be more clearly seen when looking at % of companies older than 5 years

Capital profile of the advanced cohort of startups in each

ecosystem

% of startups that have raised a meaningful amount (and hence should be capable of producing a large exit) is not too dissimilar across the ecosystems

Berlin and Stockholm’s advanced cohort has attracted more total funding than London’s – however this is driven by a small number of outliers

Median values give a better picture: London’s top cohort has attracted more on median – not surprising given the older ecosystem with more advanced companies

Berlin’s average is driven up by Zalando and DeliveryHero; median of $30m

London funding far more evenly distributed; median of $43m

Stockholm average driven up by Klarna and Spotify; median of $36m

Comparing advanced startups with prior large European exits

Recent large European exits*: median of 10 years to exit; slightly more than US (7-8 years)

* We only counted those where all VCs sold; no partial secondaries

Median age of top startups in all key hubs is still well below median time-to-exit of recent large European exits

A median of $40m was raised prior to exit*

* Small group due to lack of quality data. We know some of the figures below are likely to be too low. A more detailed review is highly welcomed.

All ecosystems inching towards median capital raised similar to previous large European exits; London closest.

Thanks!

@ciaranoleary berlinvc.com @jaderead5

More posts:

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Urban entrepreneurship hypothesis

The decreasing importance of local capital