Here it is, our Europe Start-up 100 list of companies to watch in 2017, in the areas of fintech, SaaS, data, web, mobile, gaming, internet of things and much more.
Our Europe Start-up 100 has thus far rolled out 25 hot start-ups in fintech, IoT, SaaS and data and many more fields respectively.
Now, we have our final collection of start-ups to watch, based on technological relevance as well as funding activity in the past year.
Check out the complete Europe Start-up 100 below, or click on any one of the category titles to read more about these remarkable companies.
Aid:Tech
Just two years old, Irish start-up Aid:Tech is making aid entirely transparent using blockchain technology. A London Techstars accelerator alum, Aid:Tech has secured deals with the UN, the Red Cross and Concern. Future plans for this technology could see the company take on social welfare payments in the form of remittance.
TransferWise
Launched in 2011 by Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus, TransferWise is a peer-to-peer (P2P) money transfer service with a HQ in London and eight offices around the world – though some post-Brexit changes may well be afoot.
Meniga
Icelandic start-up Meniga provides white-label software to banks to help speed up development of online platforms.
Founded in Reykjavík in 2009 by Georg Lúðvíksson, Ásgeir Örn Ásgeirsson and Viggo Ásgeirsson, Meniga’s software has been used by over 40m people through its worldwide banking clients.
Future Finance
Hailing from Dublin, Future Finance is a specialist loan provider targeting students. Earlier this year, CEO Brian Norton said that almost 40,000 students had sought loans through its service since it began in 2014. Business is largely UK-based for now, but plans are to gain traction in Ireland, Germany and the rest of Europe in time.
Aztec Exchange
Aztec Exchange has had an exciting year, culminating with a spot on Forbes’ Fintech 50 list alongside Stripe – the daddy of all Irish-founded fintechs.
Founded in 2012, this Dublin-based service supports businesses around the world, offering low-cost invoice discounting for suppliers and supply chains of major corporations.
Deposify
Yet another Dublin fintech, Deposify lets landlords and tenants manage and control how and when deposits are paid.
At just two years old, the start-up founded by Jon Bayle has been recognised as a disruptive force in the rental market and has received the backing of the Union of Students in Ireland.
SumUp
Founded in 2012 by Daniel Klein, SumUp provides small firms with mobile point-of-sale services via Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android smartphones.
Earlier this year, it merged with leading mobile card payments company Payleven, joining forces in April to become the global leader in mobile payments.
PayFit
France-based payroll management start-up PayFit was created this year by Ghislain de Fontenay, Florian Fournier, and CEO Firmin Zocchetto. Already sporting hundreds of customers, PayFit provides a SaaS platform that helps SMEs to pay their employees.
Iwoca
Iwoca is a London-based loan provider, established in 2012 by Christoph Rieche (CEO) and James Dear (CTO). To date, it has raised £46m in debt and equity, growing to a team of 120 employees. Iwoca provides online credit for small businesses, operating as a type of overdraft service, with the founders’ experience in the likes of Goldman Sachs, helping them find a niche worth exploiting.
Aire
Aire has built a machine-learning algorithm that assigns credit scores based on validated data provided by users. This gives users control over their own credit score and ensures that all data affecting their score has been willingly provided. It’s transparent and it’s essential for those unfairly judged by current credit scoring systems, such as young customers or self-employed workers.
Klarna
Founded by Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Victor Jacobsson and Niklas Adalberth in Sweden back in 2005, Klarna established itself early on as a rather unique e-payments company.
Capitalising on impulse buying, Klarna enables online shoppers to buy with one click and no financial details. Instead, Klarna pays the retailer, following up with the customer afterwards and edging towards its goal of replacing credit cards.
InvoiceFinance
Coming out of Amsterdam, InvoiceFinance provides an online marketplace for SMEs to have their outstanding invoices financed by professional and institutional investors, regardless of industry or the size of the company.
GoCardless
Operating out of London, payments start-up GoCardless is already processing £1bn worth of transactions annually, having been created in 2011. It was founded by Hiroki Takeuchi (CEO), Tom Blomfield and Matt Robinson, the last of whom recently moved off to co-found Nested.
Bondora
Based in Estonia, Bondora is the leading P2P lending platform for investing in European non-bank personal loans.
It offers investors above-market returns by issuing loans to individuals in Finland, Spain and Estonia, where the markets are underbanked in comparison to other Western European markets.
Monzo
The mobile-only bank for people who live their lives on their smartphones, Monzo is focused on building the best current account in the world for people who have outgrown bank branches and hate cheque books.
Formally known as Mondo, the company had to change its name earlier this year due to a trademark dispute and asked for suggestions from its consumers.
Figo
Just last week, it was revealed that Figo secured €6.8m in Series B funding from a collective of German business angels and DB1 Ventures (the corporate VC arm of Deutsche Börse, owner and operator of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange), the latter of which handed over a seven-figure sum for a stake in the business.
Moneyfarm
Founded in London by Paolo Galvani and Giovanni Daprà in 2011, Moneyfarm aims to make investment and wealth management low-cost, low-stress and accessible to everyone.
Bringing wealth management to your pocket (with an app, of course), Moneyfarm employs data drawn from the markets, and from a questionnaire you fill in, to build and monitor your portfolio.
Satispay
Italian start-up Satispay is a payment system that allows users to pay friends and stores from their smartphones.
Founded in 2013 by Alberto Dalmasso, Dario Brignone and Samuele Pinta, the platform is currently restricted to Italian users, but the company hopes to expand Europe-wide.
Alan
Alan officially launched as a licensed French health insurer in October, 10 months after the company was first formed.
In France, companies must offer a health insurance plan to employees and, using Alan, they can sign up and cover everyone in minutes. Insured employees can then access Alan’s online dashboard to submit reimbursements, add family members to their plan or simply get details on their coverage.
IbanFirst
IbanFirst was founded by former Saxo Banque CEO, Pierre Antoine Dusoulier, to offer SMEs an alternative to banks which, he felt, did not serve small businesses’ best interests. Founded as FX4Biz in Brussels in 2013, the start-up relaunched under its new branding earlier this year.
Circle
In October, P2P payments platform Circle arrived in Ireland and Spain, enabling users to send and receive money via their smartphones using the Circle app.
An EU-licensed money issuer, Circle has ambitions to serve the 500m-plus EU consumer market and is already live in the US and the UK.
Rubicoin
One of Ireland’s largest fintech start-ups, Rubicoin was created to make the process of finding and buying shares in companies simpler and more attractive to new users.
CEO Emmet Savage (who co-founded the company with John Tyrrell) is a noted fintech influencer and his user-friendly app is the likely product of lifelong stock investors and tech geeks.
Starling Bank
Starling Bank is a licensed mobile-only challenger bank in the UK, founded by former AIB COO, Anne Boden in 2014.
The Starling Bank app has been built to replace current accounts and offers clear-cut information on personal finance and detailed analysis of spending habits.
Brolly
UK insurtech start-up Brolly uses artificial intelligence to provide users with a ‘personal insurance concierge’ online and on their smartphone.
Brolly will tell users if they’re over or under-insured, if they have duplicate or missing cover, or whether they can get the cover they need at a better price. All of this comes through a simplified interface that even claims to make purchasing a policy as easy as tapping the app.
Everledger
Founded in 2015 by CEO Leanne Kemp, London start-up Everledger is using blockchain – a staple of financial technology – to tackle fraud in a multitude of high-value areas.
Starting as a permanent ledger for diamond certification and related transaction history, Everledger’s grand aim is to become a provenance platform for a variety of luxury goods where any counterfeit trading can prove exceptionally costly.
Sigfox
Cyc-Lok
HydraSure
Smartfrog
Otonomo
Senic
Tado
Smappee
Seebo
PointGrab
Netatmo
Relayr
Undagrid
Wia
Gigliotti
EcoRobotix
UniFly
H&D Wireless
KIWI
DeviceHub
Freespee
Silvair
Graphcore
Bluedrop Medical
Hub Controls
