Claudio Alvarez, Partner at GP Bullhound, said: “This quarter we highlight the dark art of digital onboarding and potential sector consolidation as leading point solutions scale and raise significant funding to expand their product offering via M&A. With European Fintech catching the attention of leading global growth funds, Q2 marked another high for M&A and fundraising activity, seeing over double the number of mega-rounds in a single quarter versus 2020.”
About GP Bullhound GP Bullhound is a leading technology advisory and investment firm, providing transaction advice and capital to the world’s best entrepreneurs and founders. Founded in 1999 in London and Menlo Park, the firm today has 10 offices spanning Europe, the US and Asia. For more information, please visit www.gpbullhound.com.
Simon Nicholls and Greg Smith, Partners at GP Bullhound, commented: “We continue to see YoY increases in deal activity across Digital Services including large transformative transactions showcasing post-pandemic demand for digital engineering specialists. We have also seen increased activity for cybersecurity capabilities, with consolidators acquiring MSSPs to meet market demand and rapidly acquire talent. Finally, the large connected TV opportunity is unlocking new opportunities for advertisers to deliver targeted and highly engaging campaigns.”
About GP Bullhound GP Bullhound is a leading technology advisory and investment firm, providing transaction advice and capital to the world’s entrepreneurs and founders. Founded in 1999 in London and Menlo Park, the firm today has 10 offices spanning Europe, the US and Asia. For more information, please visit www.gpbullhound.com
Alec Dafferner, Partner at GP Bullhound, commented: “The digital media sector continued to evolve in Q2. We saw a number of high-profile marquee entertainment companies take on new ownership to help adapt and position themselves in a constantly changing digital media landscape. Sports content is seeing increased demand, partly driven by the proliferation of sports betting in the US. Activity in the digital music sector remains high with technology blurring the lines within the music value chain.”
About GP Bullhound GP Bullhound is a leading technology advisory and investment firm, providing transaction advice and capital to the world’s best entrepreneurs and founders. Founded in 1999 in London and Menlo Park, the firm today has 10 offices spanning Europe, the US and Asia. For more information, please visit www.gpbullhound.com.
Manish Madhvani, Co-founder and Managing Partner at GP Bullhound, said: “It has become increasingly obvious that the European tech ecosystem is a force to be reckoned with, and the pandemic has only further solidified its status as a maturing sector competing on the global stage. The record value creation, the growing amounts of mega-rounds and the consistently high rates of Unicorn businesses speak for themselves, and we can be really proud of the ecosystem we have built.”
Key takeaways from our report include:
• 20 years of historical shareholder value in one year: There are 166 Unicorns in Europe, with 52 reaching this status and $382bn+ in value created in the past year; the number of Unicorns is up by 5x+ and the ecosystem’s aggregate valuation by 9x since our first Titans report in 2014, for an ecosystem valued at $801bn today.
• Boom in mega-rounds: $14.9bn was raised Q1 2021, almost one year’s worth of historical activity and nearly matching the $16.8bn total in 2020; record investment in the past year created Unicorns in record time, such as Gorillas in less than one year, as well as Hopin and Cazoo
• The consumer comes back: Enterprise Software and Fintech continue to lead the way, but E-commerce and Marketplaces combined produced over 2x last year’s number of Unicorns, with next-gen food delivery meeting vast demand
• Sweden overtakes the UK: Sweden leads the billion-dollar stables by value, thanks to significant valuation uplifts for core companies Klarna, Spotify, and Evolution Gaming; 57% of all EU states have now created a Unicorn
• Doubling of $50bn companies globally: Adyen is Europe’s first tech Titan, joining today’s 26 Titans globally, with a significant number of new entrants on the wave of IPOs
• Missing puzzle piece – IPOs: Europe represented 57% of the 14 Unicorn IPOs in the past two years for Europe and the US combined, but SPACs may hamper this balance with $100bn+ raised globally in 2021 and only $2.2bn of this in Europe, not to mention US SPACs targeting and acquiring European tech leaders
Who are our top 50 contenders to reach Unicorn status and what does it take to build a billion-dollar company? See our report for our list of companies demonstrating the greatest ambition, and key expert views from the founders and executive teams of Wolt, Vestiaire Collective, Starling Bank, Interactive Investor, Infobip and contenders Ravenpack, Overwolf, and Truelayer.
About GP Bullhound GP Bullhound is a leading technology advisory and investment firm, providing transaction advice and capital to the world’s best entrepreneurs and founders. Founded in 1999 in London and Menlo Park, the firm today has 10 offices spanning Europe, the US and Asia. For more information, please visit www.gpbullhound.com
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
