By Supantha Mukherjee
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – More than 1,000 technology startups were created in Europe and Israel by former employees of about 200 venture capital-backed unicorns in the region since the financial crisis of 2008, a report by VC firm Accel showed on Tuesday.
After the boom in startups in the last two years, sentiment has turned negative in the second half of this year with several companies lowering valuations and cutting jobs in a bid to find a path to profit.
But Accel argues that the community is in a much stronger position than during the financial crisis with a strong set of founders ready to create “the next wave of companies”.
Top startups such as BlaBlaCar, Criteo, Delivery Hero, Klarna, N26, Revolut, Skype, Spotify and Zalando have become the breeding grounds for new founders. Each of those companies has led to the creation of more than 20 startups, helmed by former employees.
Former employees from each of the newer startups like Babylon, Celonis, iZettle and SumUp have also created more than 10 companies.
[ Startups spawning startups ]…
