Image the scene. It’s 2003 in Tallinn, Estonia. Taavet Hinrikus, a 20-year-old pc whiz, has simply accepted a suggestion to turn out to be the primary worker of a little-known video-call startup, Skype. Little did he know then, however it was the beginning of a multi-decade evolution that might make him considered one of Estonia’s first billionaires, spawn dozens of startups, and generate billions of {dollars} in enterprise funding throughout Europe. “The idea that you can start using this [video-chat technology] to have voice and video conversations was pretty crazy for a boy who was born in the Soviet Union. But it was also obvious to me that it was going to be an exciting journey,” Hinrikus tells Fortune.
At present, at age 43, Hinrikus can add cofounder of cost platform Clever and associate of founder-led enterprise capital fund Plural Platform to his résumé, having steered a number of corporations by numerous funding rounds. Hinrikus’s story—distinctive on the flip of the century—would make him a pioneer in an enchanting enterprise pattern: In Europe, a surprisingly excessive variety of workers of unicorns like Skype would go on to launch nonetheless extra unicorns.
Europe’s founder factories
It might be an understatement to say that Europe’s tech scene has undergone a revolution since Hinrikus began his first day at Skype.
“The idea that you can start using this [video-chat technology] to have voice and video conversations was pretty crazy for a boy who was born in the Soviet Union…”
Taavet Hinrikus
Some 1,650 European tech startups have been based throughout Europe by former workers of 215 unicorns since 2008, in response to information offered by enterprise capital group Accel and Dealroom.co. The pair offered Fortune with information on European spin-outs of startups within the area, having individually analyzed Europe and Israel starup exercise over the21st century.
Sure nations have punched above their weight. Sweden, for instance, is a standout performer, breeding the multibillion-dollar companies Spotify and Klarna. Workers from that pair have based an extra 123 startups. King.com, the Swedish gaming group behind Sweet Crush Saga, has seen 43 workers go away to create their very own corporations.
Skype workers would go on to launch 31 startups in complete, together with Hinrikus’s Clever and the ride-hailing group Bolt. Thus far, these startups have raised $3.5 billion in funding.
1,650
The variety of European tech startups based throughout Europe since 2008.
Most founders, round 55%, begin their companies in the identical European metropolis the place they had been first employed. This has helped spawn community results throughout Europe which have turned unlikely cities, like Tallinn, into thriving tech hubs.
Repeat founders have additionally blossomed from the early-2000s scene. Spotify cofounder and CEO Daniel Ek, maybe probably the most high-profile founder to emerge from Europe this century, lately introduced a brand new funding spherical at a $1.7 billion valuation for his health-tech startup, Neko Well being, making him a serial unicorn creator.
The query is, why did it take Europe so lengthy to kick-start its entrepreneurial streak? And what modified to permit the continent’s founder factories to flourish?
Trailblazers
When Netherlander Harry Nelis—a associate at American fund Accel—who has operated out of Europe for the previous 21 years, interviews a candidate for his firm, he all the time asks the identical query: “What’s the riskiest thing that you’ve ever done in your life?”
Nelis’s personal reply? Getting married (he says he’s been fortunately married for 30 years now). However an in depth second could be Spotify. Nelis was a part of the workforce that gave Spotify early monetary backing, regardless of trade specialists warning {that a} streaming music enterprise would by no means work.
“The momentum was almost undeniable,” Nelis recollects when requested why he backed it anyway. “The product was so good and so easy to use, and the early consumer reaction so overwhelming, the company actually had a chance to make it.”
Consider any multibillion-dollar European tech firm as we speak, and it’s doubtless Accel was concerned in its inception. After the group raised Sequence A funding for U.S. corporations like Fb, Nelis’s solely actual mandate in Europe was to seek out entrepreneurs with “big ideas.” That daunting temporary might be why he nonetheless asks job candidates about danger as we speak.
“The biggest mistake in venture is not losing money on an investment. It is missing the outlier,” Nelis tells Fortune from Accel’s London workplace.
When he first got here again to Europe after spending his early profession in Silicon Valley, Nelis was struck by an apparent distinction in perspective between Individuals and Europeans, particularly that it was uncommon for the latter to pursue constructing an organization as a substitute of becoming a member of a longtime one.
“The biggest mistake in venture is not losing money on an investment. It is missing the outlier.”
Harry Nelis, associate at Accel
Europe has lengthy been accused of missing the work ethic typically related to Individuals. Tom Blomfield, cofounder of British unicorns GoCardless and Monzo, final yr accused the U.Ok. of affected by a “know your place” perspective that suppressed entrepreneurship.
Matt Robinson, a fellow GoCardless cofounder and now a associate at Accel, disagrees with that evaluation. Nonetheless, like his colleague Nelis, Robinson did discover a distinction in Europeans’ perspective towards entrepreneurship when he began GoCardless in 2011.
“Starting a company was not really an accepted thing to do. You know, when you sit over here and start a company, I think people assume you’re unemployed or unemployable,” he says.
Some components essential to rising a startup, like entry to seed funding, had been nascent within the U.Ok. simply 15 years in the past, Robinson notes.
Those that spoke to Fortune for this text, although, had been aligned of their evaluation that relatively than an perspective overhaul, Europe simply wanted a couple of profitable founders to indicate everybody else what was doable.
Ilkka Paananen, CEO and co-founder of Finnish cellular gaming unicorn Supercell, was a type of entrepreneurs working with no roadmap to comply with.
“There were very few European tech entrepreneurs who I could call for advice, for the simple reason that we just did not have many tech startups at scale at that time,” Paananen recalled.
Nelis says Europe’s startup founders had been function fashions who made success simpler to examine for his or her successors. A type of can be Plural’s Hinrikus, who watched Skype turn out to be considered one of Europe’s first unicorns.
“People know the drill better,” Nelis says, noting that new startups come to Accel as we speak with plans to resolve large issues in a manner they typically didn’t 20 years in the past.
Plural’s Hinrikus says his crystallizing second got here when he realized Niklas Zennström, cofounder of Skype, didn’t possess any magical powers that made him extra more likely to be a profitable founder: “He was an average person, just like me. If he can do it, then I can equally do it.”
Robinson says the most important obstacles in constructing a startup grew to become simpler for him the second time round, particularly, attracting one of the best expertise and fundraising.
Since Nelis returned to Europe in 2004, unicorns and decacorns have emerged from Europe’s VC pipeline, with a centacorn absolutely inevitable. Robinson spoke to at least one firm that talked ambitiously about changing into the first-ever kilocorn, a $1 trillion personal startup.
“I cannot imagine saying that or even thinking that back in 2011,” Robinson says.
Stick or twist?
Working a thriving entrepreneurial startup surroundings brings the inherent and evidenced danger that workers will someday go away to begin their very own, typically competing, ventures.
Tara Ryan, Monzo’s VP of individuals expertise, doesn’t see it as a tradeoff.
Monzo stands amongst Europe’s most prolific founder factories. The banking unicorn has spawned 23 startups since its creation. Oftentimes, when a brand new firm is fashioned out of Monzo, it’s not only one individual departing.
“People start their own businesses, but often their founding team or their first handful of employees are also Monzonauts,” she says.
This has been one thing embraced, relatively than suppressed. At Monzo, Ryan says, an inner firm web site celebrates former workers who went on to turn out to be founders.
“Individuals begin their very own companies, however typically their founding workforce or their first handful of workers are additionally Monzonauts.”
Tara Ryan, Monzo’s VP
“I don’t think it is healthy for employees or employers to try and retain people at all costs,” she says.
Accel’s Robinson goes one additional. Whereas at GoCardless, he would inform early interviewees his hope for them was that they might ultimately go away and kind their very own startups.
The European dream
It’s price a wager that Hinrikus, wearing a hoodie and branded tee, and talking from Plural’s London workplace, seems as invigorated as he did when he stumbled by Skype’s doorways on his first day as an worker.
Skype was acquired by eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion, a now-familiar case of an thrilling European startup being eaten up by a a lot bigger U.S. tech behemoth. Its subsequent mum or dad, Microsoft, now not wants Skype now that Microsoft’s Groups video-chat operate has been extensively adopted. Equally, DeepMind, the pioneering synthetic intelligence analysis laboratory based in London, is as we speak a Google subsidiary.
More and more, although, European corporations, pushed by rising entry to each capital and expertise, are managing to face on their very own two ft.
Spotify, Accel’s dangerous early wager in Europe, had a market worth of almost $125 billion in the beginning of March. Its Scandinavian management workforce has maintained its grasp on the corporate’s operations as Spotify battles with Apple and Amazon.
Different youthful corporations throughout Europe, like Monzo, now face the problem of rising whereas sustaining what made them distinctive as startups. Alex Norström, Spotify’s copresident and chief enterprise officer, has recommendation for startups on that journey.
“We’ve tried to maintain our entrepreneurial energy as we’ve scaled globally,” he says. “At Spotify, it’s always been about having big ambitions and delivering on them.”
Supercell’s Paananen, in the meantime, thinks Europe’s quirks make it simpler for founders to remain true to their roots.
“Europe has a very unique, diverse culture, and a unique way of life that we all love — this is a great place to live and grow a family. This should help us both retain and attract the best talent,” mentioned Paananen.
Hinrikus spoke of constructing the American Dream come true for his workers, solely in Europe.
“I think the scar tissue we have from owning our companies and building them makes us better partners for the next generation,” Hinrikus says. “There’s in all probability 100 early workers in varied positions, even in buyer help, who earned one million {dollars} from inventory choices.
“Now we’re showing time and time again that it’s not an American Dream,” he notes. “We have the same thing in Europe.”
This text seems within the April/Might 2025 concern of Fortune with the headline “The European dream.”
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
