Where Are All the European Travel Startups Based?
Skift Take
For being one of the biggest source markets of travelers for the rest of the world, Europe still has a long way to go to build up travel startups into larger, long-lasting and successful companies. The biggest successes may end up coming out of Russia rather than the rest of Europe.
Earlier this week we laid out the geographic spread of travel startups in North America, with stats on which cities and states they are based in based AngelList data on startups. Out of the total of 1,488 startups in travel sector across the world, about half of them are based in North America and about 46 percent of the overall total in United States, the data shows.
Next in this series we've decided to dig into data on European travel startups, and analyze where they get started on the continent. Some observations based on the chart below:
- About 27 percent of all travel startups are based in Europe, a total of 398 out of the universe of 1,488 listed on AngelList.
- Only 55 companies in Europe have raised any investment of $50K and above, according to AngelList.
- Out of these funded companies, Wimdu, the Airbnb clone in Europe, is the biggest venture funded company in Europe at around $90 million invested so far.
- The UK has about 1/4th of all the travel startups that are based in Europe.
- Russia is a strong contender. With the size of the market and the spate of large venture fundings its online booking companies have been racking up, it makes sense.
- As for the top cities in Europe, London, Moscow, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, and Amsterdam make up the majority of travel startup bases.
- A lot of these travel startups are more local in nature, tackling local country/regional markets, especially those on continental Europe.
- One caveat for all of this data: even though U.S. startups have good coverage on AngelList, many local European startups may not be listed on the early stage fundraising and listing service.
| Total Travel Startups: 1,488 | Total European Travel startups: 398 |
|---|---|
| Country | Number of Startups |
| United Kingdom | 97 |
| London | 78 |
| Russia | 40 |
| Moscow | 30 |
| France | 23 |
| Paris | 18 |
| Germany | 38 |
| Berlin | 20 |
| Spain | 30 |
| Barcelona | 17 |
| Italy | 25 |
| Milan | 8 |
| Netherlands | 21 |
| Amsterdam | 17 |
| Ukraine | 13 |
| Greece | 10 |
| Switzerland | 9 |
| Ireland | 9 |
| Turkey | 9 |
| Finland | 8 |
| Poland | 7 |
| Portugal | 6 |
| Estonia | 6 |
| Czech Republic | 6 |
| Latvia | 4 |
Photo Caption: UK and Russia share the majority of travel startups in Europe.
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