Page 23 - ASSET MANAGER 10 (EN)

ASSET MANAGER • NO. 10/2019 STARTUPS • 23
STARTUP FINANCING
IS RISING TO RECORD LEVELS
European start-ups have never received as much fresh capital in the first half of a year as they did in the first six months of 2018: Cash inflows rose by 27 % 10.2 billion euros. Switzerland was in fifth place in the rankings.
Study by EY
The number of financing rounds increased by 19 % to 1995. In spite of the upcoming Brexit, investors continued to rely mainly on British start-up compa- nies, which received a total of 3.1 billion euros.
Germany ranked second, with 2.4 billion euros, followed by France, with just under 2.0 billion euros. London is far ahead in the European city rankings, with 2.0 billion euros (297 financings). Second place went to Berlin (1.6 billion euros for 123 financings), ahead of Paris (1.4 bil- lion euros, 197 financings). 31 % of all financing rounds were recorded in these three hotspots of the European startup scene.
Switzerland ranks fifth in both the deal volume of 415mil- lion and the total of 124 rounds of financing. For compar- ison, in the first half of 2017, there were still 71 rounds of financing, with a total deal volume of 140 million euros. In the city ranking, Zurich is in 6th place based on 47 rounds of financing and 10th place measured by the financing vol- ume of 160 million euros. For comparison, the first half of 2017, there were 11 financing rounds with a total of 26 million euros.
These are the results of the current 'Start-up Barometer' by the audit and consulting firm EY for the first half of 2018. The study is published every six months and based on an analysis of investments in European startups. Only companies founded a maximum of 10 years ago are con- sidered. In Switzerland, the companies Dfinity Founda- tion, Chronext, Breadwinner, Ava Science, Centralway and Numbrs achieved the top five deals in the first six months of 2018.
'The upswing in venture capital financing also continued in the first half of 2018', notes Peter Lennartz, the head of EY 's 'Startup Initiative' for Germany, Austria and Swit- zerland. 'More and more startup companies are getting fresh capital, the willingness of investors to invest re- mains high, and very large sums of money are increas- ingly being invested.' Thus, the amount of financing with a volume of 100 million euros and more, in comparison to the same period last year, increased from 2 transactions to 12.
Mario Fäh, Switzerland Country Manager for the digital con- sultancy etventure, which belongs to EY, adds: 'Most re- cently, start-ups in the platform and blockchain environ- ment benefited from the current investment boom in Switzerland. By contrast, technology start-ups, for the most part, still found it harder to obtain fresh capital at larger volumes. On the other hand, there is a lot of move- ment in the field of fintech, and companies from the Software & Analytics and Mobility sectors are becoming increasingly interesting as they can help with the digital transformation of traditional industries.' For this reason, Peter Lennartz and Mario Fäh are also expecting strong in- vestment activity in Switzerland and Europe for the second half of 2018.
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