Europe\u2019s<\/a> resurgence in megarounds is down to the commercial opportunities that are emerging with AI and other technologies, leading founders to return to the market in search of private capital.<\/p>\nAgain, while these megarounds haven\u2019t come close to 2021 peaks, they\u2019ve quietly rebounded since the sharp decline seen in late 2022 to reach an average of \u20ac10 million (\u00a38.6m) over the first quarter of this year.<\/p>\n
Unicorn creation is also accelerating, for the first time since 2022. GP Bullhound identified seventeen new billion-dollar companies this year, across ten geographies, adding to a total of 331 European unicorns with a combined value of $1.4 trillion (\u00a31tn).<\/p>\n
Over the last few years, most of Europe\u2019s tech unicorns shied away from chasing more equity funding, with many spending the downturn picking away at their cash reserves as they tried to reach profitability.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, GP Bullhound found that this quiet spell is starting to lift, though progress is slow. In 2021, European unicorns raised over \u20ac43 billion (\u00a337bn), but by 2023 that had plunged to just \u20ac6 billion (\u00a35bn). But in the first five months of this year, funding has already come close to matching that figure.<\/p>\n
Despite being on the lookout for more cash, most of Europe\u2019s tech firms are still hesitant to pursue IPOs, despite gaining valuations that would traditionally warrant a listing. GP Bullhound found only one new European tech listing in the past twelve months.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, M&A activity is rocketing up. The report identified over 150 acquisitions above the $100m milestone in the last twelve months, including deals made by tech giants like Alphabet, Salesforce, SAP, and Nvidia, indicating an ongoing appetite for European innovation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Recommended reading<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cEurope has demonstrated its ability to build every component of the AI value chain, raise megarounds for its founders, and reduce its dependence on overseas technology,\u201d said Manish Madhvani, managing partner at GP Bullhound.<\/p>\n
\u201cCompanies such as Mistral, Poolside, and Multiverse are securing hundreds of millions in funding to develop proprietary technologies with global scale and impact. However, challenges remain on the liquidity front.<\/p>\n
\u201cVenture and growth investors backing these tech businesses have struggled with distributions over the past few years, as the IPO market turned silent. And 2025 will be no better, with many founders still reluctant to pursue public listings.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European tech funding has reached new heights, fuelled by a surge of AI-led innovation that has seen a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[96884,96885,2000,299,5187,96886,96887,96888,72640],"class_list":{"0":"post-251157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-ai-funding","9":"tag-ai-investment","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-ai","14":"tag-european-unicorns","15":"tag-tech-fundraising","16":"tag-tech-investment"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114824129439930217","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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