A new era of businesses is incoming: unicorns and rising stars. In their current state, they are known as scale-ups. Often defined by annual returns, number of employees or levels of funding, what really unites these, typically tech-focused, businesses is their impressive expansion and promising upwards growth trajectory. The UK alone is home to 33,860 scale-ups, contributing £1 trillion to the UK economy annually.
IPOs on European stock exchanges rose from 191 in 2020 to 485 in 2021, and 2022 is expected to see even more.
While some argue 2022 may not be the right time to IPO — earlier this month, Dutch file-sharing company WeTransfer cancelled its IPO citing “market conditions” — there are plenty of European companies on the verge of the big exit.
As more startups seek funding and investors look to put their capital to good use, we asked startup leaders, from founders to CFOs, on the most valuable lessons they learned.