Our second report focused on 10 future unicorns launched in 2021 in partnership with Maddyness. In one year, the mentality around go-to-market has changed to a whole new perspective.
As 2022 ends, we are conducting our yearly deep dive into the European startup landscape. To grasp this evolution, here's what we've uncovered in the previous editions of our Future Unicorns Report.
The 2020 Trends
2020 seemed like a peculiar year, yet we still witnessed incredible things. Putting aside a significantly impactful crisis, companies implemented swift go-to-market strategies.
- The hyper-growth winners:
Some companies launched and became household names over the course of one year since their foundation. Companies such as Gorillas (announced a deal with their biggest competitor Getir for $1.2B), Wiz, and Clubhouse grew extremely fast in terms of capital, headcount, and revenue.
- The change-setters:
Unlike most economies, COVID-19 confirmed some founders' hypothesis — the world is going remote. Our habits have significantly changed. It provided companies such as Remote and Hopin with incredible growth opportunities which may or may not last in time.
Following the publication of the first edition of our report, 6 companies passed the $1B valuation mark: Clubhouse, Volta Trucks, Hopin, Gorillas, Wiz and Remote.
The 2021 Trends
In 2021, we found that the way startups operated was completely different. Many of the companies featured were operating in stealth mode extensively before their public launch. This was the case for the Berlin-based e-bike subscription startup DANCE. They softly launched an invite-only program first.
Overall, these early-stage companies were significantly less capital-intensive. When launched, their core focus was on serving their targeted audiences' needs first.
- The blockchain boom
As the crypto economy grew in 2021, more startups leveraged blockchain. Blockchain technology enabled companies to reward their clients through tokens. It created a new level of consumer investment for companies like Flambu. This technology also enabled companies like HOPR to offer a data protection and privacy platform for Web3.
- New solutions vs hiring
Recruitment is challenging, whether due to the lack of capital or attractiveness. This is a common challenge for some to overcome. Yet we continue to witness the rise of products manageable by non-specialists such as Prediko, the inventory planning solution for e-commerce brands.These stores can continue growing without hiring new talent.
Following the publication of our report’s second edition, the companies featured grew steadily at their own pace. When creating our report, many of them were still in the process of reaching product-market fit.
Here is a sneak peek at the creation of the new edition
When we set out to create our reports, we gather a list of companies that meet the basic criteria to be qualified, which are the following:
- HQ in Europe (incl. UK & Israel)
- Founded in 2022 & 2021
- Successful ones that have either raised a lot of money in a short time and/or are making +2M in TTM (trailing 12 months). More generally, we're targeting companies that are experiencing exponential growth.
This will result in a CSV file of hundreds of companies from which we'll extract a list of 15 startups that we agree demonstrates refreshing potential.
To gather the best and most insights, we've decided to explore a new route in our research process this year: trailing the solutions, when we could. So on top of conducting our own market research, we've also analysed their processes. This provided compelling details about these companies' mindsets today: are they fixed on their pricing, and how are they planning to expand in their market.
We've cut down our initial list to provide our readers with 10 strong candidates for the unicorn valuation.
2022 Changes
It’s always astonishing how much the startup world evolves in just one year. We've seen consequential and unforeseen changes in our economy today. Nevertheless, startups continue to create with ingenuity by learning from established companies.
- A Berlin-based startup understood the limitations of FBA aggregators to avoid layoffs scenarios such as Thrasio's -- a company valued in 2021 at between $5B and $10B, which has significantly shrunk the size of its team. This startup is focused on buying and scaling D2C Shopify brands in Europe.
- A Tel-Aviv startup continues to challenge the delivery ecosystem by targeting small businesses with flexible delivery solutions. Whilst partnering with various delivery solutions, the startup offers a technology platform for more efficiency for these owners.
- A London-based startup is offering a solution for businesses to fight against the alleged "£5B stealth tax" by companies such as Visa and Mastercard. Businesses, your payments are now entirely free. Shoppers, earn cashback on your purchases.
Strategies are continuously evolving and changing year after year. Every time we find startups creating entirely new solutions and solutions to fix growing challenges faced in specific industries or everyday life.
Mark your calendars; we will release the newest edition of our report, The 10 Future Unicorns Launched in 2022, in January 2023. You can sign up here to be notified of its release.
