We’re barely a month into 2022, and we’re already seeing massive moves from the European tech scene – like Bolt raising over $700M and well on its way to becoming a decacorn, to having over 9.2B EUR raised by European startups just in January.

The industry is developing quickly, which begs the question – what can we expect to see in 2022?

We can gain some insights by taking a look at last year’s development. Many great stats can be found in Atomico’s State of European Tech report. Highly recommended, if you have the time.

These are some of the trends that I felt will dramatically impact our near future:

• Pretty much everyone was raising – with VC investment into European startups crossing the $100B threshold for the first time ever, it’s no wonder that it feels like everyone is raising funding rounds. This stat is amazing. It looks like the region is really kicking into gear and scaling, which will only continue to establish European startups as globally competitive. At the same time, this also means that there’s a near-universal demand for talent. We at TWINO weren’t raising this past year, we were busy doubling down on market strategy, profit-building, and talent management, for that matter. Funding rounds have a time and a place but do keep an eye out (wink wink). 
• Europe is a hotspot for investment, and the world’s VCs are taking notice – attaining the most VC investment in Europe than ever before goes hand in hand with another key statistic – there has never been so much US-based funding into European startups as before. Europe is the hotspot for good deals, where investor capital goes further than it would in the States. Even more so for Baltic countries. As the new hot trading ground for good deals, this mindset is sure to continue, thus only further benefiting European businesses. This will contribute to the continued growth of European tech.
• Europe leads the way in fintech – with one in five European unicorns being fintechs, we see that European innovation and policy has created a breeding ground for successful startups. The open banking regulations, PSD2, and innovative banking policies have laid the foundation for entrepreneurs to come in and shake up the conservative banking world. We feel this as well, with TWINO having been able to take advantage of IBF licensing, which will only open the door to new financial services that we’ll be rolling out in the near future.

Going through the Atomico State of European Tech report it becomes clear that this is a unique point in history, where we’re seeing an unprecedented growth rate, with Europe taking its long-sought-after place on the world stage. These achievements, driven by high-growth companies and visionaries, will continue to have a snowball effect on other businesses as they continue to benefit from others’ experience and the attention brought in by them.

All in all, it looks like 2022 is gearing up to be a major year for everyone, regardless of country, size, funding round, or maturity.