European Innovation Financing S1-2017

Date: July, 1st, 2017

New record for European innovation financing in H1 2017 with $7.7 billion invested in the eco-system, a performance largely driven by “mega-deals” closed during the period.

 

Clipperton, in partnership with Digimind, releases its European Innovation Financing report covering the first semester of 2017.
Click here to download the newsletter: Clipperton’s European Innovation Financing Newsletter – H1 2017

 

Key highlights of this study are:

  • Record-high semester with $7.7 billion, topping previous record established in H1 2015.
  • Strong semester in the DACH region at $2 billion – almost +50% year-on-year – while the UK eco-system remains solid despite the Brexit context.
  • The performance in DACH was mainly driven by mega-rounds (>$100m) such as Delivery Hero’s pre-IPO round and Auto 1. Overall, “mega-rounds” explain most of the over-semester vs. past quarters. This is comparable with H1 2015, the previous “record-semester” for European tech financing.
  • Corporates (e.g. Rakuten, Naspers, Allianz, Rabobank), large generalist PE funds (e.g. KKR, Vitruvian, NPM Capital) and US tech funds (e.g. Andreessen Horowitz, Iconiq, Benchmark) continue to feed the growth of European tech in terms of larger deals.

Thibaut Revel, Partner at Clipperton, wrote:

“’Mega-rounds’, defined as funding rounds of $100 million and more, had an exceptional impact in the last semester in Europe: with $2 billion for only 10 deals, they accounted for 26% of the record-high $7.7 billion of technology investment in Europe in H1 2017 and explain most of the growth compared to previous semesters where they were at or below $1 billion.

Let’s have a quick look at the ID Card of the 10 mega-rounds of  the last 6 months: 4 from the UK, 4 from Germany, 1 from the Netherlands, 1 from Spain (Cabify first market being Latam today), all are from the IT / Digital space (none from Life Sciences), and 7 out of 10 for consumer applications such as Food Delivery, Fintech, marketplaces and on-demand economy, alongside two very tech-centric deals: Improbable, VR technology platform with applications in gaming and Tricentis, a software testing company.

Such large rounds implying expensive valuations, investors will have a close look at the Tech IPOs for European companies in the coming quarters. The success of Delivery Hero’s IPO in June, trading at a premium compared to peers such as JustEat or Takeaway – premium apparently linked to its real global reach and aggressive growth strategy – is a positive signal for the rest of this ‘highly funded club’. Farfetch or Auto 1 could be good candidates to test the public markets in the coming quarters.”

 

For more information, please contact:

  • Thibaut Revel, Partner, trevel@clipperton.net
  • Martin Vielle, Vice-President, mvielle@clipperton.net

 

About Clipperton
Clipperton is a European independent corporate finance advisory firm exclusively dedicated to the Technology space, advising innovative companies on M&A transactions, debt financings and equity offerings. With offices in London, Berlin, and Paris and an international reach, Clipperton is a European leader in Technology financial advisory. Over the past 15 years, the team has successfully completed more than 200 high profile transactions globally.

 

About Digimind and WhoGotFunded.com
Digimind is a SaaS intelligence software company based in Paris, Boston and Singapore, providing advanced information management platforms and technologies that perform massive data collection, automatic intelligence extraction and visualisation. Using its unique web mining expertise, Digimind developed WhoGotFunded.com, the world’s most comprehensive funding database, discovering over 100 fresh funding deals every day in real time all across the world.

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