- 90% of VC-backed European start-ups increase revenues, create jobs and deliver innovation
- First large-scale study of EU start-ups, covering 9,000 companies across all EU-28 Member States
Invest Europe has teamed up with the European Investment Fund (EIF), the EU’s leading venture capital (VC) investor, to release new research that highlights venture capital’s positive impact on fostering innovation, growth and job creation at start-ups across Europe.
The report entitled The VC Factor: Data-driven insights about VC-backed start-ups in Europe is the result of an ambitious research collaboration between the EIF and Invest Europe, the association representing venture capital, private equity and infrastructure sectors and their investors in Europe. The ground-breaking report tracked and analysed data on almost 9,000 young companies between 2007 and 2015, as well as some €35 billion of VC investment flows, offering new insights into Europe’s burgeoning start-up scene.
“We are delighted to have teamed up with Invest Europe for this data-driven project to analyse venture capital investment and its role as a catalyst for start-up success,” said Helmut Krämer-Eis, EIF’s Chief Economist. “Knowledge is power – and hence we are confident that the new report increases the understanding of the European VC ecosystem and delivers further proof of the positive impact of venture capital on start-ups.”
“We are thrilled to have worked with the EIF on The VC Factor,” said Invest Europe CEO Eric de Montgolfier. “The research shows that the benefit of venture capital funding for the vast majority of companies is substantial. Receiving VC investment enables them to unleash their full potential, growing further and faster than their peers while also creating new innovations and empowering investors into European VC as an asset class.”
The report acknowledges that not all VC-backed start-ups survive, nor do they always perform as their founders dream. However, over a third of start-ups studied were high performers, generating strong revenue growth, creating significant numbers of jobs and spurring innovation.
Key findings include:
- One in five start-ups were classified as “all-rounders”, generating 141% revenue growth on average and a 54% increase in employee numbers over four years.
- 7% of start-ups were classified as “visionaries”, performing strongly on intellectual property with intangible assets such as patents up by 534%.
- 8% were classified as “superstars”, outperforming on all fronts with revenues growing 358%, intangibles by 340% and staff by 109%.
The VC Factor compared start-ups with VC backing to those without in order to determine the impact of venture investment and expertise. It found that without VC investment, start-up performance would have been significantly poorer across all profiles, while the number of “laggards” that shrink in size would have increased more than threefold. In addition, almost half of high-growth start-ups would have either fallen into a much less successful profile or defaulted in the absence of VC.
The report also made new discoveries about the locations of VC investments. The six largest VC hubs in Europe received one third of all investment activity, led by Ile-de-France, inner London and Berlin. Meanwhile, Nordic start-ups – centred around the fourth-largest hub Stockholm – were the most innovative in terms of new patents and intangible assets. At the same time, emerging start-up hubs are shaking the status quo with 25% of capital deployed into cities with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants.
To read The VC Factor report in full, please click here.
NOTES TO EDITORS
The study highlights successful start-ups such as InFarm, the Berlin-based vertical farming group which is aiming to reduce food miles, Dutch Solynta, a developer of potato seeds that are designed to help developing world growers by being less bulky and perishable than tubers, and Inkitt, a book publishing platform that wants to give aspiring authors a fair chance of success.
