Europe's Major Startups: A Shortlist
America gets a lot of attention, deservedly, but EU has some impressive companies
There’s a meme around social media that Europe can no longer innovate, that the EU is ‘too old’ to make new companies, or that the whole continent is ‘in decline’.
This is nonsense. America right now clearly has a great economy and a lot of that is thanks to unicorns that have popped up over the last 10-20 years. But I didn’t buy this idea that EU* countries don’t have their own major players.
So I did a little research, and there’s actually even more highly impactful companies that I had initially remembered. To me high impact meant two things: it was fairly well known and valuation reached 1B (at least at one point). Now, I’m also including the UK and the nordics as origin countries. But since a lot of people casually include those in “Europe” I think it’s fine for this purpose.
Note: The Following table renders well on desktop/mobile web, but you may need to click the link to DataWrapper to see all entries if using the Substack mobile app
So here it is, a handy reference to share if you see this meme going around. Technically Novo Nordisk was founded in 1923 but since Ozempic has exploded in popularity and will very likely have a major impact on people you know, I thought it fair to include it.