For unicorn hunters in India — in the context of startups, of course — things have been going well this year. Well, actually maybe we can’t answer that question. They are enabling global payments, and thus, sitting right at the intersection of tech revenue and international growth. I appreciated what Alexandre Prot, co-founder and CEO of Qonto, had to say from the Fintech space about expanding into other European countries.“Although businesses in Europe face different regulations and environments in the various countries, fintech startups have the benefit of single license banking, which makes operating in Europe similar to that of a large single market, such as the US. Valuations of those firms in aggregate have growth at an even faster pace, a 4.7X increase in the same time period. So if the median SaaS/Cloud IPO is worth $5.5 billion, then raising almost $400,000,000 on the way to an IPO is, including dilution, roughly 10% of that pre-IPO valuationb. In turn, their customers are able to reach more markets too. One sentence really stood out to me from Adyen’s annual report in their message from their CEO, Pieter van der Does:“As we continue to grow into new geographies and verticals on the back of merchant demand, we are well on our way to having the full strength of Adyen available across the globe, and in every sales channel.”As van der Does explains, increased globalization is a major driver of Adyen’s growth. (What’s also interesting about Adyen, from my point of view, is that in 2019, they achieved this revenue target with only 1200 employees, which means revenue per employee of €414,000, or US$467,726 using today’s exchange rate of 1.13. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Full COVID impact on these companies for 2020 revenue, especially those with high concentrations of customers in just one vertical, remains to be seen.Another favorite part of this report is the unicorn company “contenders” section. OK, we get it.
Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Brand awareness for tech companies is often highly local in nature until a company either reaches a certain size or expands beyond its own borders. This is quite the exchange of value. This isn’t just a trend we should expect to see in Europe, but all over the world, and even in the United States.
It’s hard to imagine any product that could be more closely tied to their customers’ success than one that literally enables them to realize their international revenue potential.32 new companies based in Europe achieved a $US1B valuation in the past 12 months, while five companies had their market cap fall below that amount. Top SaaS companies are China-based property platform company Beike (US$15bn) and social commerce company Xiaohongshu (US$5bn), followed by USA-based HashiCorp (US$5bn). Here are some of the most important highlights from the report:In short, these findings show that while Europe has yet to create its first “tech titan,” it’s likely to happen in the near future as tech firms in these markets grow.
We operate in France, Italy, Spain and Germany using one license that can be passported according to EU regulations.”It’s great to see a tech CEO like Prot citing ease of international expansion as a differentiator and a path that provides reassurance to investors about their growth potential. They are also a global company themselves, with those 1200 employees (as of 2019) representing 80 nationalities — across more than 20 offices from São Paulo to Sydney.
But as globalization continues, things are changing. The report discusses the high rates of growth that these European tech firms have seen from 2014 through 2020. European companies are often prepared to go global earlier in their growth paths that US-based companies. Companies based there will have no problem finding top-quality engineering talent. However, Adyen is an important name on the global tech scene.