UK's leadership in European tech accelerates
and extends beyond London
October 2018
Prepared for Tech Nation and the Government's Digital
Economy Council by Dealroom.co

Following the IPOs of Farfetch and Funding Circle, the UK currently has 15 unicorns - companies valued
at more than a $1bn, with an estimated combined value of $28bn

In total 60 unicorns have now been created in the UK. The pace has been accelerating in the last three
years

It's not just London that creates significant, fast-growing businesses. Major UK cities and capitals are
competing successfully with other European capitals
Oxbridge - the university cities of Oxford and Cambridge combined - have together produced nine
unicorns, more than Paris which has produced five
Manchester has created five unicorns of its own, the same number as Amsterdam and Paris

The UK is also creating more potential future unicorns than any other European country and Israel

The UK has 54 potential unicorn companies valued at $250m to $1bn. Germany and France have
created 28 and 27 potential unicorns respectively
Summary
Source: Dealroom. See methodology page for more info.
2
The United Kingdom leads with 60 unicorns created (35% out
of 169 in Europe & Israel)
3
Source: Dealroom. See methodology page for more info.
Cumulative number of companies by year in which $1 billion valuation mark
is crossed
5
5
8
10
12
13
24
35
43
51
60
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
United Kingdom
Germany
Israel
Netherlands
Sweden
France
Switzerland
Spain
Russia
Rest of Europe
Since 2016 more new unicorns were created in the UK than in
Germany, France, Sweden and the Netherlands
4
Source: Dealroom. See methodology page for more info.
United
Kingdom
The Hut Group
Oxford Nanopore
Deliveroo
TransferWise
Mimecast
Global Switch
Skyscanner
Metro Bank
OakNorth Bank
Improbable
Blue Prism
Brewdog
Alfa
PurpleBricks
Matchesfashion
Host Europe Group
Revolut
Greensill
Darktrace
SumUp
On The Beach
Callcredit
FNZ
Autolus
Monzo
Trivago
1&1 Internet
Flixbus
N26
BioNTech
About You
Celonis
NuCom Group
Germany
Coolblue
Takeaway.com
Gitlab
Elastic
Netherlands
Evolution Gaming
Bambora
Paradox Interactive
iZettle
Sweden
OVH
Exclusive Group
Deezer
France
United Kingdom
Germany, France, Sweden, Netherlands
8
8
9
2016
2017
2018
6
3
10
2016
2017
2018
Number of new unicorns
Number of new unicorns
54
companies
28
25
27
12
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
The UK also continues to lead Europe by number of
potential future unicorns
Source: Dealroom.co
5
Combined value of companies valued $250M to $1B
Selected potential future unicorns
$18.6B
$8.8B
$8.1B
$7.7B
$3.5B
$2.6B
$2.6B
$2.1B
$2.0B
$1.5B
$1.0B
$0.9B
United Kingdom
Germany
Israel
France
Switzerland
Ireland
Spain
Russia
Sweden
Netherlands
Austria
Finland
London
Berlin
Unicorns
Unicorn stats
36 unicorns worth $132B
8 unicorns worth $32B
Investment per
capita
$610
$490
Top universities
Imperial College London (#8)
London School of Economics and Political Science (#25)
Humboldt University of Berlin (#62)
Accelerators
146
42
6
Unicorns: number of companies founded since 1990 that reached $1 billion valuation.
Investment per capita based on investment in 2017 and city population.
University rank as per Times Higher Education.
Cambridge & Oxford
Paris
Unicorns
Unicorn stats
9 unicorns worth $57B
5 unicorns worth $10B
Investment per
capita
$ 1,800(Cambridge)
$650 (Oxford)
$700
Top universities
University of Oxford (#1)
University of Cambridge (#2)
Paris Sciences et Lettres (#74)
Grenoble Alpes University (#301)
HEC Paris, ESSEC
Accelerators
22
51
7
Unicorns: number of companies founded since 1990 that reached $1 billion valuation.
Investment per capita based on investment in 2017 and city population.
University rank as per Times Higher Education.
Manchester
Amsterdam
Unicorns
Unicorn stats
5 unicorns worth $13B
5 unicorns worth $29B
Investment per
capita
$490
$400
Top universities
University of Manchester (#54)
University of Amsterdam (#59)
Accelerators
10
18
8
Unicorns: number of companies founded since 1990 that reached $1 billion valuation.
Investment per capita based on investment in 2017 and city population.
University rank as per Times Higher Education.
9
London: 36 unicorns
Manchester: 5
Cambridge: 5
Berlin: 8
Paris: 5
Stockholm: 8
Amsterdam: 5
Oxford: 4
Munich: 6
Source: Dealroom.co
Note: Cities with two or more $1B+ companies created since 1990.
Dublin: 2
Hamburg: 2
Uniquely, the UK has six tech hubs in which already two or
more unicorns have been created
Edinburgh: 2
Leeds: 2
Madrid: 3
Barcelona: 2
Copenhagen: 4
Summary slide
London
Oxbridge
Berlin
Paris
Manchester
Amsterdam
Edinburgh
Dublin
Leeds
Unicorns created
36
9
8
5
5
5
2
2
2
Population
8.2M
290K
3.5M
2.2M
510K
821K
489K
565K
780K
Investment per
capita
$610
$1,150
$490
$700
$490
$400
$100
$490
$33
Highest ranked
university
8
1 & 2
62
72
54
59
27
117
139
Number of
accelerators
146
22
42
51
10
18
6
14
10
10
Unicorns: number of companies founded since 1990 that reached $1 billion valuation.
Investment per capita based on investment in 2017 and city population.
University rank as per Times Higher Education.
Realised unicorns: 45
Unrealised unicorns: 15
Future unicorns: 54
Appendix: overview of UK unicorns
Source: Dealroom.co
11
About Dealroom.co
Source: Dealroom.co
1. Verified rounds excluding secondary, ICOs, debt and other non-equity rounds.
12
The most comprehensive European data source
Intelligence, trusted by world-leading clients
Dealroom is a global company information database & research firm

Its software, database and bespoke research enable its clients to stay at
the forefront of innovation, discover promising companies and identify
strategic opportunities

Among its clients are world-leading strategy consulting firms, investment
banks, multinationals, technology firms, venture capital & buyout firms and
governments
Number of European VC rounds tracked in 2017 (1)
Not disclosed in official report
Selected publishers of Dealroom data
Selected Dealroom clients
Europe's most comprehensive database of promising
companies and investment
Growth metrics like product usage, funding and valuation
momentum (web, iOS, Android)
Track team size, background, composition and growth
Discover potential unicorns, long before others do
Industry taxonomy and database structure designed for
innovative technology startups & scaleups
Stay at forefront of innovation and investment trends

Investment numbers refer to venture capital investment rounds such as seed, series A, B, C, . late stage, growth equity rounds. It excludes debt or
other non-equity funding, lending capital, grants and ICOs

Buyouts, M&A, secondary rounds, and IPOs are treated as exits: excluded from funding data, but included in exit data

A unicorn is defined as an independent private company (i.e. not publicly listed) that has reached a $1 billion valuation, on the basis of a funding
round or -retrospectively- on the basis of an acquisition or IPO

There are some notable edge-cases:
- Companies that IPO-ed at or above $1 billion but subsequently dipped below that valuation, are still included (e.g. Alfa, Rovio, eDreams)
- Some companies have at some stage reached a $1 billion but subsequently raised, IPO-ed or were acquired below that value. In this case the
company is not counted as a unicorn (examples: Blippar, Home24, ironSource, Fanduel, Ulmart, Conduit, Wonga, VE Interactive, Powa)
- If a unicorn moved HQ, the company is counted in the country where it reached unicorn status. Occasionally companies received dual HQ status
(1)

This report focuses on companies that have crossed the $1 billion mark in the post-internet age, i.e. after 2000. Most but not all unicorns are
venture backed

Companies in the included in the analysis are tech-driven. Industries include software, ecommerce, online marketplaces, hardware, ICT
infrastructure. The full industry & business model taxonomy can be found online via app.dealroom.co/heatmaps/funding/industries

Increasingly, innovative models are scaling offline or via hybrid online-retail models. Examples are beer brand Brewdog which innovated distribution
and marketing, by leveraging viral marketing and crowdfunding to build a brand and Metro Bank, a retail-first challenger bank

Dealroom's proprietary database and software aggregate data from multiple sources including processing of public news-flow, data feeds, web
scraping, crowd-sourced contributions (verified by Dealroom) and manual research

Data is verified and curated with an extensive manual process, augmented by data processing
Most underlying data from the report is available online. For more info please visit dealroom.co or contact support@dealroom.co
Source: Dealroom.co.
1. Examples include: King.com (UK/Sweden), Intercom (USA/Ireland), Sitecore (Denmark/USA), Cybereason (Israel/USA).
Methodology & definitions
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