Europe's top VCs pick out 19 hot startups that are challenging the status quo

Poppy Gustafsson
Poppy Gustafsson, co-CEO of Darktrace. Darktrace
  • Innovation is essential to getting ahead in the competitive world of tech, be it getting the best talent, finding new ways of doing things, or taking unexpected decisions to stay on top of the pack. 
  • VCs spend much of their time working with companies promising the next big thing which makes standing out increasingly tricky.
  • Here are the startups which have grabbed the attention of VCs the most in Europe this year. 
  •  Click here for more BI Prime stories

European tech has had a bumper year — seeing a record $5.3 billion investment from US venture capitalists into the region, amid $12.1 billion in overall investment in the first seven months of 2019, per Dealroom figures. 

It's set to continue for the rest of 2019 as funds look to find startup gems at lower valuations than their counterparts in the US.

Business Insider asked VCs in Europe and the US which startups have been the most innovative in 2019, most of which come from within funds' own portfolios. Many have had big growth fundraisings in 2019 as they continue to expand. In no particular order, here are the 19 startups:

Read more: US investors have plowed a record $5.3 billion into European startups this year, and it's a sign they're getting priced out of Silicon Valley

Klang Games

Klang Games
Klang Games' founders Ívar Emilsson, Mundi Vondi, and Oddur Magnússon Klang Games

Startup: Klang Games

Cited by these VCs: Paul Murphy (Northzone)

Total raised: $36.3 million

What it does: Klang is an independent games studio based in Berlin which is developing immersive new gameplay. 

Why it's so innovative: Klang is developing a MMO openworld game called Seed which looks set to revolutionize the gaming space with players actions continuing to impact the world long after they have logged off. 

UiPath

Daniel Dines UiPath
Daniel Dines, CEO of UiPath UiPath

Startup: UiPath

Cited by these VCs: Luciana Lixandru (Accel)

Total raised: $1 billion

What it does: UiPath is a company which focuses on robot process automation platforms for businesses using AI and bots to develop better processes. The company was founded in Romania but is now headquartered in New York. 

Why it's so innovative: "UiPath is now one of the fastest growing companies in the Accel portfolio and valued at $7 billion," according to Lixandru. "Its founder and CEO Daniel Dines and his team have built a phenomenal culture and hiring strategy that have helped enable the company to scale so quickly."

 

 

 

 

Deliveroo

Will Shu
Will Shu Deliveroo

Startup: Deliveroo

Cited by these VCs: Martin Mignot (Index Ventures)

Total raised: $1.5 billion

What it does: Deliveroo is a food delivery service which has hosts of riders bring takeaway food direct to your door. The company was founded in London by former US banker and hedge fund employee Will Shu. 

Why it's so innovative: Deliveroo is not without its critics for its use of gig economy labour but the company's growth from a startup with little funding to one of the UK's most valuable tech enterprises has come through striving to innovate. The company set up its Deliveroo Editions service to provide additional capacity to well known restaurants to cater for increased demand. 

Darktrace

Poppy Gustafsson
Poppy Gustafsson, co-CEO of Darktrace. Darktrace

Startup: Darktrace

Cited by these VCs: Matus Maar (Talis Capital)

Total raised: $230.5 million

What it does: Darktrace is a Cambridge, UK-based cybersecurity company with a unicorn valuation. The startup was spun out of Mike Lynch's Invoke Capital. 

Why it's so innovative: Darktrace's big idea was that instead of doing cybersecurity like a medieval fortress by erecting a big wall to keep people out, it's better to do it like espionage — track people who break in to find out what they're after, who they are, and how they got in, Business Insider reporter Isobel Asher Hamilton previously wrote. VCs have praised the leadership of the company's co-CEO Poppy Gustafsson for being key to the company's growth. 

Algolia

Algolia Co founders, Nicolas Dessaigne and Julien Lemoine
Nicolas Dessaigne and Julien Lemoine Algolia

Startup: Algolia

Cited by these VCs: Luciana Lixandru (Accel)

Total raised: $74.3 million 

What it does: Algolia is a NY-based, French founded company which provides web search functionality through a SaaS enterprise model. 

Why it's so innovative: Algolia's founders are Paris natives who came through Y Combinator. Their offering is a sub-set of search engines which allows websites to offer search functions as a service by indexing the often large and complex back office systems for clients. 

OpenCosmos

OpenCosmos
OpenCosmos OpenCosmos

Startup: OpenCosmos

Cited by these VCs: Suzanne Ashman (LocalGlobe)

Total raised: $7 million

What it does: Open Cosmos provides simple and affordable space missions.

Why it's so innovative: "Open Cosmos is revolutionizing the way space technology is used and is at the forefront of the emerging new space industry," Ashman told Business Insider. "They do this by providing simple and affordable space missions, using nano satellite technology, providing end to end space missions for customers around the world."

Ynsect

Ÿnsect
Ÿnsect Ÿnsect

Startup: Ÿnsect

Cited by these VCs: Matus Maar (Talis Capital)

Total raised: $172.3 million

What it does: Ÿnsect, founded in 2011, is a French agtech company which focuses on developing insect proteins. 

Why it's so innovative: The company's recent Series C funding will go towards developing the world's largest insect farm in Amiens, France.

Faculty

Marc Warner Faculty
Faculty CEO and cofounder Marc Warner Faculty

Startup: Faculty

Cited by these VCs: Suzanne Ashman (LocalGlobe)

Total raised: $3.67 million

What it does:Faculty is an AI technology company founded out of academic roots to help organisations build AI capability.

Why it's so innovative: Faculty helps organisations work out what they can do with AI and has worked on more than 300 AI projects for clients including easyJet, Tesco and the BBC. One of its most interesting programmes was creating an online anti-propaganda tool, to help stop the spread of fake news and propaganda from Daesh extremists, according to Ashman. 

Tiney

Brett Tiney
Brett Wigdortz, founder of Tiney Tiney

Startup: Tiney

Cited by these VCs: Suzanne Ashman (LocalGlobe)

Total raised: $2.2 million

What it does: Tiney is a company that recruits individuals to launch 'home nurseries' - childcare businesses they run from their own homes.

Why it's so innovative: The company's founder, Brett Wigdortz, is the creator of the Teach First scheme and seen as a key creative force behind the startup's growth. Tiney hopes to have more than 100 home nurseries set up by the end of 2019. 

 

Collibra

Felix_Collibra
Felix Van de Maele, Collibra cofounder and CEO Collibra

Startup: Collibra

Cited by these VCs: Jan Hammer (Index Ventures)

Total raised: $234 million

What it does: Collibra is a data intelligence company spun out of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, in Brussels, Belgium in 2008. 

Why it's so innovative: "Brussels-born Collibra is one of the less well-known European unicorns, but one of the fastest growing," according to Hammer. "Collibra is the data nervous system of many large companies, breaking down silos, and making it easy to access, trust and understand organisational data."

Cowboy

Cowboy founders
Cowboy founders: Adrien Roose, Karim Slaoui and Tanguy Goretti Cowboy

Startup: Cowboy

Cited by these VCs: Martin Mignot (Index Ventures)

Total raised: $24.5 million

What it does: Cowboy is an e-bike company founded in Brussels, Belgium last year by Adrien Roose, Karim Slaoui, and Tanguy Goretti.

Why it's so innovative: "Riding an electric bike from Cowboy is like trying the iPhone for the first time," claims Mignot. The company has designed an e-bike which is connected to the company's app and contains key information on routes and battery power. 

Lunchr

Lunchr_Logo
Lunchr Lunchr

Startup: Lunchr

Cited by these VCs: Marie Ekeland (Daphni)

Total raised: $46.7 million

What it does: Lunchr is a French lunch coupon company. Employer-led meal schemes are popular in France and Lunchr has taken the concept further by digitizing the process further into an app and payment card. 

Why it's so innovative: Beyond an expansion into new restaurants and offers which are helpful to its business model. Lunchr has an outside of the box corporate structure with its operations split between its founding office in Montpellier in the South of France and Paris where much of its tech operations reside. 

GeoPhy

GeoPhy
GeoPhy founders Sander Mulders and Teun van den Dries GeoPhy

Startup: GeoPhy

Cited by these VCs: Jan Hammer (Index Ventures)

Total raised: $33 million

What it does: GeoPhy is a database and analytics company which covers property markets and was originally founded as OfficeRank in The Netherlands in 2014. 

Why it's so innovative: "GeoPhy is using big data and machine learning to understand value of every property in the world, bringing much-needed transparency to the real estate market," said Index partner Jan Hammer.

InFarm

InFarm founders (from left Osnat, Erez and Guy)
InFarm founders Robert Rieger

Startup: InFarm

Cited by these VCs: Laura Connell (Balderton)

Total raised: $134.1 million

What it does: Berlin-based InFarm is growing food in innovative in-store trays which use LED growing systems and so-called "sunflower" tray technology in vertical farms. That massively reduces carbon dioxide emissions and other climate-related costs.

Why it's so innovative: InFarm uses centralized software to ensure that growing conditions and recipes are optimized across its network with each "farm" able to produce 1,200 plants per month. The company has expanded rapidly across Europe in recent years. 

You can read more about Agtech companies which will change the future of food here.

Healx

Healx founders
Healx founders Tim Guilliams and David Brown Healx

Startup: Healx

Cited by these VCs: Laura Connell (Balderton)

Total raised: $11.9 million

What it does: Healx is an Cambridge, UK-based, AI driven healthtech platform which develops treatments and drugs for people with rare diseases which they estimate to be one in 20 people.

Why it's so innovative: Healx matches scientific experience and expertise with an AI platform and one of the largest rare diseases databases in an attempt to massively reduce waiting times for patients suffering from health issues. 

Oxford Nanopore

Gordon Sanghera 2018
Oxford Nanopore CEO Gordon Sanghera Oxford Nanopore

Startup: Oxford Nanopore 

Cited by these VCs: Julia Hawkins (LocalGlobe)

Total raised: $557.3 million

What it does: Oxford Nanopore is a DNA sequencing company founded in 2008.

Why it's so innovative: The company has made "huge advancements in its long-read sequencing capability," according to Hawkins. 

 

Butternut Box

Butternut Box
Butternut Box cofounders Kevin Glynn and David Nolan Butternut Box

Startup: Butternut Box

Cited by these VCs: Eric Martineau-Fortin (White Star Capital)

Total raised: $28 million

What it does: Founded in London in 2016, the subscription company delivers home-cooked dog food to customers' doors and has raised $28 million to date.

Why it's so innovative: Butternut Box is applying its founders' hard learned lessons in management and execution from their time as traders at Goldman Sachs to a growing market, according to Martineau-Fortin. You can read more about Butternut Box here

WeFox

Tasos Chatzimichailidis
Wefox CEO Tasos Chatzimichailidis Wefox

Startup: WeFox

Cited by these VCs: Tara Reeves (Omers Ventures)

Total raised: $158.8 million

What it does: German insurance startup WeFox was founded in 2015 and connects all users of insurance products via its network. 

Why it's so innovative: Reeves claims that WeFox is the fastest growing insuretech in Europe. WeFox is "transforming the industry and bringing along incumbents with them, while offering a brilliant service to consumers," according to Reeves. 

Zoe

Zoe
Zoe Zoe

Startup: Zoe

Cited by these VCs: Marie Ekeland (Daphni)

Total raised: $27 million

What it does: Zoe is a London-based company working in the health tech space to develop individual diet recommendations for people based on research into microbiomes.

Why it's so innovative: Zoe has conducted extensive studies with expertise based on its founders research including a 20 year database on digestive patterns of twins. 

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