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
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Tags: europe

Photo credit: UK and Russia share the majority of travel startups in Europe.

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