Take a picture of the scene. This is 2003 in Tallinn, Estonia. The 20-year-old Computer Whiz Taavet Hinrikus has just accepted the proposal to become the first employee of the little-known startup video, Skype. Then he knew little, but this was the beginning of the evolution of several decades, which would make it one of the first billionaires of Estonia, spawning tens of startups and created billions of dollars in financing the enterprise across Europe. “The idea that you can start using this (video-chat technology) to lead voice and video conversations was very crazy for a boy born in the Soviet Union. But it was also obvious to me that it would be an exciting journey,” Hinricas says Happiness.
Today, at the age of 43, Hinrikus can add the co-founder of the wise platform and the multiple capital platform, which is managed by the founders, multiple platforms, sending several companies at the expense of countless financing rounds. Hinric’s history – unique at the turn of the century – would make it a pioneer in a fun business trend: in Europe, a surprisingly large number of unicorn employees, such as Skype, will continue to run even more unicorns.
Founder’s factories
It would be understood that the technological scene of Europe has survived the revolution since Hinric started its first day in Skype.
“The idea that you can start using this (video-chat technology) to lead voice and video conversations was pretty crazy for a boy born in the Soviet Union …”
Taavet Hinrikus
According to 2008 data Provided by Venture Capital Group Accel and Dealroom.co. The couple is provided Wealth With the data on European backs of startups in the region, he separately analyzed the activity of Europe and Israel Starup during the 21st century.
Some countries have struck above their weight. For example, Sweden-publishing performer who breeds multi-billion dollar companies Spotify and Klarna. Employees of the couple found another 123 startups. King.com, a Swedish game group behind Candy Crush Saga, saw 43 employees left to create their own companies.
Skype employees continue to launch 31 startup everything, including wise Hinrikus and a trip. To date, these startups have raised $ 3.5 billion.
1650
The number of European startups founded across Europe since 2008.
Most of the founders, about 55%, start their business in the same European city where they were for the first time. This helped spawning the network effects across Europe, which turned into unlikely cities like Tallinn into flowering technological nodes.
The founders of the repeat also flourished from the stage of the early 2000s. Co-founder Spotify and CEO Daniel EC, perhaps the most loud founder who has emerged from Europe this century, recently announced a new $ 1.7 billion financing round for his startup Health-Tech, NEKO Health, which made him a series.
The question is why Europe took so much time to start its entrepreneurial series? And what has changed to allow the founder of the continent to thrive?
Trailebrozers
If the Dutch Harry Nealis, a partner in the American Accel Fund, has been in force for the last 21 years, a candidate for his campaign, he always asks the same question: “What is the most risky thing you did in your life?”
Own response to Nelis? To marry (he says he has been happily married for 30 years). But a close second can become Spotify. Nalsis was part of a team that gave Spotify early financial support, despite the industry experts, warning that the music business would never work.
“The impetus was almost indisputable,” Nelis recalls why he still supported him. “The product was so good and so easy to use, and the early consumer reaction is so preferred that the company actually had the opportunity to do it.”
Think about any multi -billion dollar European technology company today, and probably Accel participated in its creation. After the group has collected a series a series for US companies such as Facebook, the only real Nelis mandate in Europe was to find entrepreneurs with “big ideas”. This terrible short short, probably so he still asks candidates to work on risk.
“The biggest mistake in the enterprise is not to lose money for investment. There is not enough alien,” – says Neolis Wealth From the London office Accel.
When he first returned to Europe, having pursued his early careers in the Silicon Valley, Nelis was struck by a clear difference in relations between Americans and Europeans, namely that it was unusual for the construction of the company, not to join the established.
“The biggest mistake in the enterprise is not to lose money for investment. There is not enough alien.”
Harry Nalis, partner in Accel
Europe has long been accused of lack of working ethics often related to Americans. Tom Blomfield, co -founder of the British unicorn Gocardless and Monzo, blamed the UK last year of suffering from “knowing his place” suppressed by entrepreneurship.
Matt Robinson, Comrade co -founder of Gocardless, and now Accel’s partner does not agree with this assessment. However, like his colleague, Robinson, Robinson noticed the difference in the attitude of Europeans to entrepreneurship when he started Gocardless in 2011.
“The launch of the company was not actually accepted.
Some elements that are crucial for growing startups, such as access to seed financing, are born in the UK just 15 years ago, Robinson notes.
Those who talked Wealth In this article, however, aligned in the assessment that, not overhaul, Europe simply needed several successful founders to show everyone the rest that is possible.
Ilkka Paananen, CEO and co -founder of the Finnish Mobile Game Unican Supercell, was one of those entrepreneurs who work without a roadmap.
“There were very few European technological entrepreneurs, which I could seek advice, for the simple reason that we had no technology startups at the time,” Pananen reminded.
Nelis says that the founders of the startup in Europe became an example for imitation, which made it possible to success in their successor. One of them will be plural, who watched the Skype one of the first unicorn in Europe.
“People know better training,” Nelis says, noting that the new startups are coming to Accel today, planning to solve big problems as they often do not 20 years ago.
Ginrick in the plural says his crystallization moment came when he realized that Nicklas Zenter, co -founder Skype, did not possess the magical forces that made him more successful the founder: “He was an ordinary man like me. If he could do it, I can do it equally.”
Robinson says the main obstacles in the construction of the startup have become easier for him for the second time, namely, attracting the best talents and fundraising.
Ever since Nelis returned to Europe in 2004, unicorns and decacorous came out of the PPC pipeline from Europe, with the center, of course, inevitable. Robinson talked to one company that ambitiously talked about becoming the first in Kilocorn history, a private startup of $ 1 trillion.
“I don’t imagine to say or even think in 2011,” Robinson says.
Follow or curl?
Working a thriving entrepreneurial environment for a startup brings inherent and witnessed risk that employees once leave to start on their own, sometimes competing, starting.
Tara Ryan, Vice President Monzo People, does not perceive it as a compromise.
Monzo is among the most prolific factories in Europe. Since its creation, the bank unicorn gave rise to 23 startups. Often, when a new company is formed from Monzo, it’s not the only one who is leaving.
“People start their own business, but often their founding team or the first few employees are also Monsonovts,” she says.
It was something hugged, not suppressed. According to Ryan, Monzo, an internal company, notes former employees who became the founders.
“People start their own business, but often their founding team or the first few employees – also Monzonauts.”
Tara Ryan, VP Monzo
“I don’t think for employees or employers to try to keep people at all costs,” she says.
Robinson Accel goes on. Being at the Gocardless, he would say early interviewed that they were hoping that they would eventually leave and formed their own startups.
European Dream
It is worth betting that Hinric, dressed in a hoodie and branded a tee, and speaking from the plural London office, looks just as he was, as and when he went through the Skype door on his first day as an employee.
Skype was purchased by Ebay in 2005 for $ 2.6 billion, and an already familiar case of an exciting European startup, which eats a much larger technological hippo in the US. The next parent, Microsoft, no longer needed Skype now, when the Microsoft Video Chapter feature is widely accepted. Similarly, Deepmind, a pioneer laboratory of artificial intelligence, founded in London today is a subsidiary of Google.
However, more and more European companies that move to the growth of both capital and talents are capable of standing on their own legs.
Spotify, a risky Accel rate in Europe, had a market value of almost $ 125 billion in early March. His Scandinavian leadership supported its company operations as Spotify with Apple and Amazon.
Other young companies across Europe, like Monzo, are now faced with the problem of growth, keeping what made them unique as startups. Alex Norstra, competition and main business -director Spotify, has tips on startups in this journey.
“We tried to maintain our entrepreneurial energy when we scale globally,” he says. “Spotify has always been about great ambitions and delivery to them.”
Meanwhile, the Supercell believes that Europe’s quirks are facilitated by the founders to remain true to their roots.
“Europe has a very unique, diverse culture and a unique lifestyle that we all love is a great place for life and growth. It should help us preserve and attract the best talent,” said Pananen.
Hinric said that the American dream come true for its employees, only in Europe.
“I think the scar tissue we have from the possession of our companies and creating them makes us the best partners for the next generation,” Hinric says. “There may be 100 early employees in different positions, even in support of customers who have earned a million shares.
“Now we show the time and again that this is not an American dream,” he notes. “We have the same thing in Europe.”
This article appears inApril/May 2025Fartune release with the headline “European Dream”.
Originally this story was presented on Fortune.com
https://fortune.com/img-assets/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/GettyImages-1149467042-e1742826671783.jpg?resize=1200,600
2025-03-25 06:15:00
Ryan Hogg
