Investors put 234 million euros into the scene in 2020, compared with 218 million euros in the previous year. This emerges from the “Startup Report 2020/21”. The number of financing transactions increased by 18 percent. The number of deals rose by 3 percent to more than EUR 500,000, while the number of financings with a volume of over EUR 2 million fell by a fifth. “Overall, there were more deals, but on a smaller scale,” said Florian Kandler, editor of the report, on Tuesday at an online press conference. Financing was not noticeably interrupted by the outbreak of the corona crisis. In 2020, funding rounds were carried out every month except August. The “Startup Report” takes into account financing over 250,000 euros (excluding subsidies).
The number of international investors increased sharply in the previous year, especially with larger financing volumes of 2 million euros or more. This could be an indication that Austrian investors had a more conservative investment behavior during the corona crisis, which could have attracted more international donors, said Kandler.
A record year is looming for start-up financing this year. There were already some major deals to report in the first half of the year. The domestic crypto trading platform Bitpanda received around 170 million euros in a financing round in March and was the first start-up in Austria to report a company valuation of 1 billion euros. Also in March, investors put around 70 million euros into the Vienna tutoring platform Go Student, and in June there was a capital injection of 200 million euros. Go Student is currently valued at 1.4 billion euros.
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
