糖心视频

and are by far the most active investors in European unicorns over time. And their lead persists when it comes to investments in the new crop of 86 companies to join The Crunchbase 糖心视频 in 2021.聽

Europe has on the unicorn board and . 1

Palo Alto-based Accel tops the list with 60 investments in European unicorns that have not yet exited. Not far behind, San Francisco-based Index Ventures counts 45 investments.聽

Tied for the third most active investor in European unicorns by counts are London-based and Paris-based . London-based , originally from Oslo, is the fifth most active investor.聽

All of these leading firms were founded in Europe except for Bay Area-based Accel, which has been on the ground in Europe investing in startups for the better part of two decades.聽

Growth equity firms , , and are the next five most active investors by counts. These firms are mostly New York-based, except for SoftBank Vision Fund, which is headquartered in London. Berlin-based , which invests heavily at the seed stage, is listed as the ninth most active.聽

Seed

It鈥檚 challenging to spot potentially highly-valued companies at the seed stage, when a startup is typically not much more than an idea.

and (both headquartered in London), Vienna-based , and Berlin鈥檚 Global Founders Capital are the investors with the highest portfolio counts investing at seed in private unicorns.

Leading at Series A and B

Accel led the highest count of investments, 18,聽 in Series A and B rounds. Index Ventures was the next most active with 13 investments led, and Balderton rounds out the top three with seven rounds led at Series A and B.聽

These leading investors at the early stage mirror the slots for the three most active investors by round counts. This means these firms invest early and continue to invest in subsequent funding rounds.聽

Growth equity

Leading at late-stage is the SoftBank Vision Fund, which has placed the most dollars into European unicorns in rounds it has led or co-led over time. Tiger Global is the second most active lead investor at late stage, and Index Ventures and General Atlantic share the third spot.聽

At each funding stage, a different set of investors is active in unicorns in Europe.聽

Growth investing showed the largest increase in 2021 with a more than 500 percent jump year over year.聽 Early-stage investments grew more than 140 percent.聽

And seed-stage funding was down, as the companies that raised funding at seed in 2021 have not yet been anointed as high-growth companies.聽

Further reading

• European Unicorns Raise Funding At Incredible Pace
• Europe鈥檚 Unicorn Herd Multiplies As VC Investment More Than Doubled In 2021
• Europe鈥檚 Most Active Startup Investors In 2021 Hail From Across The Globe

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Methodology

The Crunchbase 糖心视频 includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on Crunchbase data. New companies are as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round.聽

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding聽

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