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2018 Roundup
Renaissance Europe
2018 was a record year for the global venture capital market. It was a year of superlatives: The most amount of money invested in the highest number of private tech company financing rounds; some of the largest venture capital deals in history; the continuing rise of the mega funds that shake the market with every deal they make. This resulted in over $207bn invested globally in over 14,000 deals throughout the course of the year.
In Europe over $23bn was invested in European technology companies, up from just $5bn in 2013.
Across Europe 17 companies achieved “Unicorn” ($1bn valuation) status in 2018.
The base of European technology talent also continues to grow. The European professional developer population now stands at 5.5m (compared to 4.4m in the U.S.) This talent is spread across Europe with 15 cities having a developer population of 50,000+.
The top three locations for development talent in Europe, in order, are; London, Berlin and Paris.
We also noted a strong M&A market, we are particularly proud of the part we played in building the European leadership team for Qualtrics, who in Q4 accepted an all cash offer for $8bn from SAP. The UK continued to outperform the rest of Europe’s tech sector by attracting $7.9bn worth of investment. UK start-ups accounted for more than a third of sales, IPOs and mergers across Europe with $40bn worth of exits in 2018. Notable European exits included the flotations of Adyen, Farfetch and Avast and the acquisition of iZettle by PayPal.
The acquisition by U.S. PE giant of UK based Zoopla for $2.2bn was one of the top 10 PE deals in the world last year.
Renaissance is delighted to be working with Zoopla founder Alex Chesterman on his new venture Cazoo – which is shaping up to be one of the most interesting start-ups in Europe in 2019 with over £30m raised in a Series A round.
We are fortunate that our own business has mirrored this activity meaning 2018 has been an exceptional year for Renaissance Leadership. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our clients, investors and candidates for making 2018 such a great year. We look forward to 2019 and wish you all a happy and successful year ahead.
Tony Willis – Founder CEO.
tony@ren-lead.com
Some of our notable projects in 2018 include:
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BARCELONA
Rob Cassedy, CEO
Wallapop is the leading internet classifieds company in Spain and one of the key global players of a new pure mobile approach that is disrupting the industry. With over 40 million users and more than 100m products uploaded onto the Wallapop website they have taken the industry by storm. Founded in Barcelona by Agustin Gomez in 2013, by 2015 Wallapop had expanded across the globe into countries including France, UK, Mexico, Brazil and the US where it was the top downloaded app in a matter of weeks. Investors include; NEA, Insight Venture Partners, Accel and Naspers.
Wallapop appointed Rob Cassedy as their new CEO who will bring his expertise in high volume consumer technologies to help guide the company towards a new stage of growth. Rob spent the last three years as CEO of eBay Kleinanzeigen in Germany. Earlier in his career, he led the European expansion for eBay Inc.
For more information please visit: www.wallapop.com
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LONDON
Adam Kay, VP Sales
Paddle is a UK headquartered software company that provides an all-in-one commerce platform for independent software vendors. Regularly cited as one of London’s fastest growing software businesses, Paddle is backed by a syndicate that includes Notion Capital, British Growth Fund and Kindred Capital.
Adam joined Paddle from Conversocial where he spent the previous three years running global sales. His task is to continue their exceptional growth rate both by revenue and team size.
For more information please visit: www.paddle.com
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LONDON/MADRID
Cleo Sham, COO
Spotahome is the first platform designed for direct booking of accommodation of 30 days or more, taking away one of the biggest headaches for people planning to move abroad and making finding a new home secure, transparent, fast and easy. Spotahome operates in nine different countries (Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, U.K., Ireland, Germany, Austria and UAE) and 16 cities across the EMEA region, with a headcount of more than 200 people, most of whom work in its headquarters in Madrid.
The company has raised significant investment, notable from U.S. giant Kleiner Perkins and some of Europe's leading 'Founder / Investor' venture capital firms including Nordic Makers, Samaipata Ventures, and Arthur Kostens, one of the Founders at Booking.com and currently one of Europe’s most successful growth stage investors.
Cleo joined Spotahome to oversee the overall performance and efficiency of the business, she joined after four successful years at Uber as Head of Regional Operations EMEA.
For more information please visit: www.spotahome.com
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LONDON
Huw Owen, VP EMEA
Couchbase is a leading enterprise transformation organisation using NoSQL database solutions. Headquartered in California they have raised over $150m in funding from leading Venture Capitalists including Accel Partners, Mayfield Fund and Sorenson Capital.
Huw joins from Tanium where he held the title RVP for Northern Europe. Earlier in his career Huw was number two in EMEA for Symantec, VP EMEA at Good Technology and ran the entire Services organisation for Lenovo in EMEA.
For more information please visit: www.couchbase.com
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LONDON
James Sturrock, CEO
Eve Sleep is a pioneer of luxury sleep solutions, promising the perfect start to every day thanks to a guaranteed great night’s sleep. They starting trading in 2015 and have since grown the team to over 100. Headquartered in London, Eve is listed on the AIM exchange.
James Sturrock, who was previously Managing Director of online gifts and card retailer Moonpig, stepped into his new role at Eve in September 2018.
For more information please visit: www.evemattress.co.uk
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LONDON
Olivier Van Calster, VP & GM Europe
Known as the world’s first “Stock Market of Things,” StockX enables the buying and selling of high-demand consumer products. StockX is backed by leading Silicon Valley-based VCs including GV and Battery Ventures, as well as noted celebrity investors such as Eminem, Mark Wahlberg, famed DJ Steve Aoki, model and entrepreneur Karlie Kloss, streetwear designer Don C, Salesforce Founder Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff, Ted Leonsis, AOL’s Tim Armstrong, Scooter Braun and Ron Conway.
Olivier Van Calster is an experienced Digital Executive and joined StockX to lead its European expansion. Olivier joined after a successful three-year stint with talent management platform Talmix, where he served as CEO.
For more information please visit: www.stockx.com
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LONDON
Jason Green, CTO
Backed by Exponent, Wowcher is a leading provider of online discount deals in the UK and Ireland. The business secures deals at a significant discount from merchants, which it publishes across email, website, and mobile platforms to a database of subscribers.
Jason Green joined Wowcher at a time when the group was looking to exploit the growth opportunity following the successful acquisition journey of the previous years. Jason is one of the brightest and most respected CTOs in Europe having previously returned from Berlin where he spent five years working with some of the fastest growing business within the Rocket Internet family.
For more information please visit: www.wowcher.co.uk
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LONDON
Nick Cheetham, Chief Revenue Officer
Currencycloud is a leading UK based fintech business providing a market leading foreign exchange platform. Backed by a syndicate that includes Notion Capital, Sapphire Ventures and Google Ventures.
Nick joined as CRO from Fiserv where he led the FINkit division (previously Monitise) and is responsible for all go to market activities on a global basis.
For more information please visit: www.currencycloud.com
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LONDON
Darren Upson, VP Small Business Europe
Soldo, a London based fintech startup, address the gap that currently exists between traditional banking organisations and the needs of their commercial customers. Soldo was founded and is led by the CEO Carlo Gualandri, a highly successful Italian technology entrepreneur with a track record of building and exiting businesses in the world of Media (Virgilio), Banking (Fineco), and Gaming (Giococ Digitale) and is backed by Accel Partners.
Darren is a highly experienced, hands on SaaS Marketing Leader, who joined from Xero where he led their expansion from 60,000 to 150,000 customers in the UK. Previously he was responsible for NetSuite’s marketing activities in EMEA.
For more information please visit: www.Soldo.com
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Our 2018 clients include:
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About Renaissance
Renaissance is a leading Executive Search and Leadership firm based in London and Silicon Valley, specialising in the Digital and Enterprise Technology sectors.
For over a decade we have been building Board and Leadership teams for some of the most exciting start-ups and fast growth companies, often VC or Private Equity backed. We also work with leading corporate organisations in the technology sector, and those undergoing rapid technology or digital transformation.
For further information please contact:
Tony Willis, Founder and CEO - tony@ren-lead.com
www.renaissance-leadership.com
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