EC 16 European Unicorns You Should Know About

Cand Crush in motion. Photo Credit: King

Candy Crush in motion. Photo Credit: King 

In a November 2013 TechCrunch post titled “Welcome To The Unicorn Club,” Aileen Lee from Cowboy Ventures defined the term ‘unicorn' as a company with a public or private market valuation of more than $1 billion. Since then, the term invaded the startup community lexicon and companies with more than $1 billion valuations are being commonly referred to as “unicorns.”

However, TechCrunch's list focused mainly on companies from Silicon Valley and did not include any company from outside the

As various startup scenes are emerging globally, with Germany, Lithuania, Thailand and even Gaza as great examples, we would like to take a look at some of the companies from the rest of the world that made it to the unicorn club.

While this post is focused on Europe (we decided also to include Israel in this list since it's an OECD country and is relatively close to Europe), the second part will cover Asia & Oceania, Russia and Canada.

France

1. Criteo

Photo Credit: PR screenshot

Photo Credit: Criteo

Founded  2005
Funding – Market valuation at IPO last year: $1.6 billion
Founders  Franck le Ouay, Jean-Baptiste Rudelle and Romain Niccoli
Sector – AdTech
Overview – Started in Paris, Criteo (CRTO) is a global leader in performance based display advertising. Criteo tracks user activity on desktop, mobile, and social sites to help advertisers reach and engage potential customers. The company's software spots hesitant shoppers who have left the advertiser's website without making a purchase, and sends them tailored ads personalized with the products they were searching for online.

Criteo was one of the first AdTech to master personalization, and has reaped the awards of being a forward thinker.

2. Vente-Privée

Photo Credit: PR screenshot

Photo Credit: Vente-Privee

Founded – 2001
Funding – Market valuation at $3 billion
Founders  CEO Jacques-Antoine Granjon and seven other partners
Sector – E-commerce
Overview  Vente-privee.com is an invite-only e-commerce retailer, focusing on exclusive designer brand sales and insider discounts for its members. It was the first company to use the online flash sale business model to help brands sell their overstock inventory without harming the brand's reputation.

Today, vente-privee.com reaches more than 19 million members in eight European countries and has partnerships with more than 1,500 prominent international brands, making it one of the largest private online companies in Europe. It officially entered the unicorn club in 2010, thanks in part to Summit Partners' 20% acquisition in 2007.

Denmark

3. JUST EAT

Photo Credit: PR

Photo Credit: JUST EAT

Founded – 2001
Funding – Market capitalization of $2.44 billion
Founders  Henrik Østergaard, Christian Frismodt, Jesper Buch, Per Meldgaard
Sector  Food and drink
Overview  JUST EAT (JE-) is an online food ordering service where customers search for their favorite local takeaway restaurants and place orders, with options for pickup or delivery. To use the service, restaurants pay upon registration to the platform, while JUST EAT also charges a commission of 10 to 12 percent on each order made through the platform.

It rose to prominence as one of the first startups to integrate restaurants into a shared online ordering platform. And with mobile surging, well, you can imagine how relevant JUST EAT's technology has become. On April 3, in one of the biggest technology IPOs in the UK (it relocated to London in 2006), JUST EAT debuted on the London Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of £1.47 billion ($2.44 billion).

Estonia / Luxembourg

4. Skype

Photo Credit: PR screenshot

Photo Credit: Skype

Founded – 2003
Funding – Market valuation as of 2011: $8.5 billion
Founders  Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis
Sector – Telecom
Overview  Skype, one of the world's most popular voice over IP (VoIP) services, made free computer-to-computer calls and low-rate calls from computers to telephones a reality. The service is available in 27 languages and has more than 600 million global users, with an average of 4.9 million active users each day.

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