Austrian start-ups received more fresh capital in 2021 than ever before: In the past twelve months, a total of 1.23 billion euros flowed to young domestic companies headquartered in Austria, which is almost five times as much as in the same period of the previous year, is from the current EY- Start-up barometer visible. In 2020, 262 million euros were invested in start-ups.
This record year was driven by major investments in the Viennese “Unicorns” GoStudent (online learning platform) and Bitpanda, a trading platform for cryptocurrencies, stocks and precious metals. With 223.5 million euros, Bitpanda received the largest financing round that an Austrian start-up has ever received. The company’s valuation rose to around 3.5 billion euros with the financing round in August.
The number of seven-digit investments increased from 29 to 63, and the most interesting industries for donors were software, eCommerce and health. Seven deals exceeded the threshold of 50 million euros, four were over 100 million euros. Not a single deal was registered in either size category in 2020.
63 million to Upper Austria
With 18 financings worth 63 million euros, Upper Austria was in second place in a comparison of the federal states, so it is a fixture in the domestic start-up scene. In 9th place in the Austria ranking, for example, the animal tracking start-up Tractive, which received a financial injection of 29 million euros in May.
“With Bitpanda and GoStudent, there have been the first Austrian unicorns among around 1,600 worldwide since this year. Austria has now also made it onto the map of international venture capitalists for this criterion,” says Florian Haas, head of the start-up ecosystem at EY Austria.
Source: Nachrichten
