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Funny they didn’t mention UI Path and some others like Darktrace, Deliveroo, Getir, Trendyol etc… : https://sifted.eu/articles/europe-unicorns-2021/ https://si

Funny they didn’t mention UI Path and some others like Darktrace, Deliveroo, Getir, Trendyol etc… : https://sifted.eu/articles/europe-unicorns-2021/ https://sifted.eu/articles/europe-unicorns-2021/ https://sifted.eu/articles/uipath-seed-investors/ https://sifted.eu/articles/uipath-seed-investors/

code51 5y ago
Looks like Getir has proven the business model locally but considering their latest moves in the UK, their main goal is capturing the European market. I have doubts about the whole instant-delivery space though. Profit margins are probably not large enough to make the business sustainable. The scenario looks like winner-takes-all or at least hold your breath until IPO.
bschne 5y ago
> “Now Spotify is the winner in music streaming, Klarna is the winner in buy-now-pay-later and UiPath is the winner in robotic process automation—they’re all European,” he says.
- nostrebored 5y ago
  > Klarna is the winner in BNPL lol what a bold and wrong statement
  - MikeKusold 5y ago
    Swedish Klarna is privately valued at 45.6B. US Affirm is publicly valued at 34.55B. AUS Afterpay is publicly valued at 31.19. I don’t think it is a bold statement. All the major competitors are pretty close.
    - WJW 5y ago
      I don't really have a horse in this race, but surely the big credit card companies are the big dogs in the "buy now pay later" market? Or is there some highly tech-specific submarket these days?
      - mistrial9 5y ago
        credit has been the ruin of whole societies -- what can go wrong?
      - yladiz 5y ago
        It's similar but a little different, as it is usually shorter (you need to pay it in a set number of installments over a fixed schedule, like 4 weeks) and there's no interest if you pay on time, at least with Klarna. I have no idea how they make money (maybe they make some money from the interchange?) but that's the gist of their business model.
        nivenkos 5y ago
        They make money when you don't pay on time.
        hogFeast 5y ago
        They earn a fee from merchants and, despite what they say, I believe most of these companies also have products that aren't zero interest (Affirm also sells some of its loans...I have no idea about this, I have relatively good knowledge of accounting but I am not 100% on the accounting for this so I have no idea whether it actually generates income). The fee from merchants is interesting because the claim is: the fee from merchants is going to be larger than the losses from making bad loans (and the costs of servicing). I am very sceptical of this. Management describe their underwriting model as largely using stuff like the product bought, the retailer used, the value of the order...it just sounds very suspect. And that is before you consider the valuation, the legislative risks, the interest rate risk (doing 0% loans stops making sense if interest rates rise), etc. I am in the UK and these kind of businesses usually trade at very low multiples because the regulation in the space is so high. I would regard $10bn market cap as a pretty jazzy valuation for Affirm, the stock is at $35bn.
      - nine_zeros 5y ago
        Buy now, pay later platforms allow random e-commerce sites to support installment payments. Thus, mom and pop e-commerce sites don't need to build it out. It's all provided as a SaaS.
    - nostrebored 5y ago
      That is why it's a bold statement. The landscape is still rich with competitors and seeing new entries. Affirm and Afterpay are public. Klarna is private and the beneficiary of a very frothy VC market. Their rounds are led by Softbank which many investors think is leading a charge in overvaluing unicorns. We'll see how things shake out. Calling them 'the winner' of the market is just odd.
      - onion2k 5y ago
        Calling them 'the winner' of the market is just odd. Calling them the winner right now is fine. They are winning. They have not won though. The game is still on.
        nostrebored 5y ago
        Measuring private valuations vs. public valuations is dubious. I don't think it's as clear cut as people are making it.
        jackTheMan 5y ago
        Valuations is dubious regardless private/public. See Tesla or Rivian...
rexreed 5y ago
UiPath, while founded in Romania, is officially headquartered in the US (NYC) and is counted in US / NYC funding amounts. 80% of the team is not in Europe either, with the entire management team in the US. So they aren't usually included in any Europe VC roundups, despite the origin of the company.
- sebow 5y ago
  Should not be double-counted in regarding the funding, indeed, but it still is a 'romanian company', and it's not really in the "startup phase" anymore, it actually has some long history but only post-covid became very successful. European startups that are remotely successful literally have to move to NYC(or any other US city i guess, but NYC is the preferred choice, though it may be expensive) to not die off.It's not even a joke, and it's the sad reality of living in the grandious European Union that suffocates you with bureaucracy.There have been places that became lax towards tech startups (see cz for example), but even with laws being slowly changed/ignored, the money either isn't there compared to US, and even if there is (see france, uk especially post brexit), the investing entities lean on the fact that there's more talent/square meter, so they're not really that quick to pull the trigger if they can save on some bucks.
- oblio 5y ago
  > 80% of the team is not in Europe either, with the entire management team in the US. Is that really the case? Their main R&D center is in Romania and it's huge. If anything, it's probably the other way around since management is the top of the pyramid, which kind of by definition, is not a lot of people.
  - rexreed 5y ago
    Yes, counting the sales, marketing, solutions development, partner management, education, consulting, and other parts of the company, the vast bulk of the team are not in Romania, even though a large part (but not all) of the R&D team is there. More details here: https://craft.co/uipath https://craft.co/uipath
    - 5y ago
stef25 5y ago
> Deliveroo How perceptions of this company has changed. Prices are ridiculous, both from the Deliveroo mark up and what the restaurants charge extra to make up for that markup (4EUR bottled water seriously?) More than half the riders here in Belgium are illegal immigrants using fake rider accounts that don't speak the local language. There's a squat near my house where they all hang out waiting for a call. Seriously, look in side the window and you see a bunch of guys sitting around on broken chairs and crates surrounded by their Deliveroo backpacks (which are all filthy and worn out). They're so destitute and sorry looking that when one comes in to a restaurant to pick up a delivery you think omg. I'm not someone who usually takes the side of "those poor workers" but in this case Deliveroo really runs on paying the poorest, more vulnerable people in society pennies to deliver over priced meals that a restaurant sold them for something like 30% less than they usually would. Meanwhile the industry's gravitating toward ghost kitchens, putting even more unfair pressure on local restaurants. Seriously I'd love drag whatever MBA is behind this company and show them what their "high valued startup" looks like here. I don't understand how these people sleep at night. And then there's Lendable: "Loans at 28.6% Representative APR" and we're supposed to be amazed they turn a profit?!
- jacquesm 5y ago
  All of the food delivery companies are predatory. Haven't seen a single one yet that is doing anything other than to squeeze the restaurants, the customers and the deliverators for every last dime.
  - stef25 5y ago
    takeaway.com employs their riders, I think.
    - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
      Hilariously enough, they resisted doing the deliveroo style delivery for a long long time as they couldn't see a way to make money on it.
- 908B64B197 5y ago

code51 5y ago

Looks like Getir has proven the business model locally but considering their latest moves in the UK, their main goal is capturing the European market. I have doubts about the whole instant-delivery space though. Profit margins are probably not large enough to make the business sustainable. The scenario looks like winner-takes-all or at least hold your breath until IPO.

bschne 5y ago

> “Now Spotify is the winner in music streaming, Klarna is the winner in buy-now-pay-later and UiPath is the winner in robotic process automation—they’re all European,” he says.

nostrebored 5y ago
> Klarna is the winner in BNPL lol what a bold and wrong statement
- MikeKusold 5y ago
  Swedish Klarna is privately valued at 45.6B. US Affirm is publicly valued at 34.55B. AUS Afterpay is publicly valued at 31.19. I don’t think it is a bold statement. All the major competitors are pretty close.
  - WJW 5y ago
    I don't really have a horse in this race, but surely the big credit card companies are the big dogs in the "buy now pay later" market? Or is there some highly tech-specific submarket these days?
    - mistrial9 5y ago
      credit has been the ruin of whole societies -- what can go wrong?
    - yladiz 5y ago
      It's similar but a little different, as it is usually shorter (you need to pay it in a set number of installments over a fixed schedule, like 4 weeks) and there's no interest if you pay on time, at least with Klarna. I have no idea how they make money (maybe they make some money from the interchange?) but that's the gist of their business model.
      - nivenkos 5y ago
        They make money when you don't pay on time.
      - hogFeast 5y ago
        They earn a fee from merchants and, despite what they say, I believe most of these companies also have products that aren't zero interest (Affirm also sells some of its loans...I have no idea about this, I have relatively good knowledge of accounting but I am not 100% on the accounting for this so I have no idea whether it actually generates income). The fee from merchants is interesting because the claim is: the fee from merchants is going to be larger than the losses from making bad loans (and the costs of servicing). I am very sceptical of this. Management describe their underwriting model as largely using stuff like the product bought, the retailer used, the value of the order...it just sounds very suspect. And that is before you consider the valuation, the legislative risks, the interest rate risk (doing 0% loans stops making sense if interest rates rise), etc. I am in the UK and these kind of businesses usually trade at very low multiples because the regulation in the space is so high. I would regard $10bn market cap as a pretty jazzy valuation for Affirm, the stock is at $35bn.
    - nine_zeros 5y ago
      Buy now, pay later platforms allow random e-commerce sites to support installment payments. Thus, mom and pop e-commerce sites don't need to build it out. It's all provided as a SaaS.
  - nostrebored 5y ago
    That is why it's a bold statement. The landscape is still rich with competitors and seeing new entries. Affirm and Afterpay are public. Klarna is private and the beneficiary of a very frothy VC market. Their rounds are led by Softbank which many investors think is leading a charge in overvaluing unicorns. We'll see how things shake out. Calling them 'the winner' of the market is just odd.
    - onion2k 5y ago
      Calling them 'the winner' of the market is just odd. Calling them the winner right now is fine. They are winning. They have not won though. The game is still on.
      - nostrebored 5y ago
        Measuring private valuations vs. public valuations is dubious. I don't think it's as clear cut as people are making it.
        jackTheMan 5y ago
        Valuations is dubious regardless private/public. See Tesla or Rivian...

rexreed 5y ago

UiPath, while founded in Romania, is officially headquartered in the US (NYC) and is counted in US / NYC funding amounts. 80% of the team is not in Europe either, with the entire management team in the US. So they aren't usually included in any Europe VC roundups, despite the origin of the company.

sebow 5y ago
Should not be double-counted in regarding the funding, indeed, but it still is a 'romanian company', and it's not really in the "startup phase" anymore, it actually has some long history but only post-covid became very successful. European startups that are remotely successful literally have to move to NYC(or any other US city i guess, but NYC is the preferred choice, though it may be expensive) to not die off.It's not even a joke, and it's the sad reality of living in the grandious European Union that suffocates you with bureaucracy.There have been places that became lax towards tech startups (see cz for example), but even with laws being slowly changed/ignored, the money either isn't there compared to US, and even if there is (see france, uk especially post brexit), the investing entities lean on the fact that there's more talent/square meter, so they're not really that quick to pull the trigger if they can save on some bucks.
oblio 5y ago
> 80% of the team is not in Europe either, with the entire management team in the US. Is that really the case? Their main R&D center is in Romania and it's huge. If anything, it's probably the other way around since management is the top of the pyramid, which kind of by definition, is not a lot of people.
- rexreed 5y ago
  Yes, counting the sales, marketing, solutions development, partner management, education, consulting, and other parts of the company, the vast bulk of the team are not in Romania, even though a large part (but not all) of the R&D team is there. More details here: https://craft.co/uipath https://craft.co/uipath
  - 5y ago

stef25 5y ago

> Deliveroo How perceptions of this company has changed. Prices are ridiculous, both from the Deliveroo mark up and what the restaurants charge extra to make up for that markup (4EUR bottled water seriously?) More than half the riders here in Belgium are illegal immigrants using fake rider accounts that don't speak the local language. There's a squat near my house where they all hang out waiting for a call. Seriously, look in side the window and you see a bunch of guys sitting around on broken chairs and crates surrounded by their Deliveroo backpacks (which are all filthy and worn out). They're so destitute and sorry looking that when one comes in to a restaurant to pick up a delivery you think omg. I'm not someone who usually takes the side of "those poor workers" but in this case Deliveroo really runs on paying the poorest, more vulnerable people in society pennies to deliver over priced meals that a restaurant sold them for something like 30% less than they usually would. Meanwhile the industry's gravitating toward ghost kitchens, putting even more unfair pressure on local restaurants. Seriously I'd love drag whatever MBA is behind this company and show them what their "high valued startup" looks like here. I don't understand how these people sleep at night. And then there's Lendable: "Loans at 28.6% Representative APR" and we're supposed to be amazed they turn a profit?!

jacquesm 5y ago
All of the food delivery companies are predatory. Haven't seen a single one yet that is doing anything other than to squeeze the restaurants, the customers and the deliverators for every last dime.
- stef25 5y ago
  takeaway.com employs their riders, I think.
  - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    Hilariously enough, they resisted doing the deliveroo style delivery for a long long time as they couldn't see a way to make money on it.
908B64B197 5y ago