Estonian Startup and VC Ecosystem — Vestbee report 2023

Now, over 1400 startups are located in Estonia, including over 100 newly registered ventures during 2022 and Q1 of 2023. The ecosystem’s total enterprise value has reached €36.3 billion. In addition, Estonia holds the highest number of unicorn companies in the CEE region, with 10 in total.

In the new research of the Baltic states, Vestbee made an overview of the Estonian startup and VC ecosystem from 2014 to 2023. AIN.Capital shares the key notes of the report.

Estonian startup ecosystem overview

• 1400+ startups currently operate in Estonia, with a total of €36.3 billion in enterprise value.
• Estonian ecosystem has the highest number of startups per capita in the world — 1,090 startups per 1 million inhabitants.
• There are 10 unicorns in Estonia: Skype, Playtech.com, Wise, Bolt, Pipedrive, Zego, ID.me, Gelato.com, Veriff, and Glia.
• In 2023, the country registered 108 transactions, the total funding decreased to €400.05 million
• Top sectors are fintech (€196 million in turnover), business software & HR (€162 million), cybertech (€142 million), as well as consumer products & services (€83 million).

Estonia’s biggest funding rounds of 2023

• ID.me received €122.1 million in a Series D round from Scout Ventures, CapitalG, FTV Capital, Moonshots Capital, Viking Global Investors;
• Skeleton Technologies raised €54.0 million from Marubeni and Siemens;
• Hi secured €27.7 million in a early-seed stage from Animoca Brands;
• Rangeforce closed Series B with total of €18.5 million investment from KPN Ventures, Cisco Investments, Paladin Capital Group, Energy Impact Partners (EIP), and LAPA CAPITAL
• Binalyze received €17.5 million in a Series A round from Molten Ventures, Citi Ventures, Cisco Investments, OpenOcean, Deutsche Venture Capital.

Estonian VC ecosystem overview

Estonian investment landscape is full of both regional as well as foreign VC firms. Around 94% of venture capital in Estonia comes from foreign funds, the most active of them include: 

The most active local investors, angels, and accelerators are:

Newly launched regional funds are:

• In February 2023, Startup Wise Guys the first €25 million closing of its €45 million fund. The firm will back early-stage startups across B2B SaaS, fintech, cybersecurity, XR, and sustainability spaces throughout CEE, Italy, Spain, and Africa.
• In September 2022, Trind Ventures opened its second €55 million fund, which will invest in startups from Northern and Central Europe, developing B2B and C2C software solutions. 
• In June 2022, Superangel announced its new €50 million fund, planning to invest in deep tech startups in the Baltics and Nordics. Additionally, it introduced tokens to reward those contributing to the success of the portfolio startups. 
• At the beginning of 2022, Specialist VC announced a new €50 million fund to focus on pre-seed to seed startups across the Baltics and Ukraine/Finland. The core interest areas of the firm lie within B2B, SaaS, fintech, platforms, software-enabled hardware, and deeptech.