New Palo Alto
Introduction
New Palo Alto (NPA) is a supercluster of leading European ecosystems and research hubs that sit close to each other.
New Palo Alto, when compared to global superclusters such as Beijing and Palo Alto, ranks 3rd globally by unicorn count and 1st for the number of university alumni startups.
New Palo Alto accounts for nearly half of Europe’s total startup enterprise value and is home to over 40% of all European unicorns.
Venture Capital
By stage
The past decade has seen a steady increase in early-stage investment, particularly in the startup stage.
The breakout stage also saw a significant increase, with a 170% growth between 2020 and 2022.
Meanwhile, the scaleup sized funding rounds saw moderate growth of around 20% during the same period.
Explore all funding rounds into New Palo Alto here on the platform.
Below view the VC funding breakdown by early, breakout and scaleup funding round sizes.
Global position
New Palo Alto has produced more unicorns than any metro area except the Bay Area. It ranks #2, #3 or 4 by most metrics when compared against other similar-sized global ecosystems.
Notably, NPA is #2 by the number of unicorns created and future unicorns, only behind the Bay Area.
EMEA is more skewed towards early-stage relative to North America.
NPA has been one of the faster-growing major tech ecosystems in the last five years, growing nearly twice as fast as the Bay Area, albeit from a lower base.
New Palo Alto has even surpassed Bay Area at the seed stage.
VC landscape
7 of the top 10 VC firms in EMEA (as ranked by Dealroom) have their main office in New Palo Alto or (in the case of Sequoia have their main European office there)
Explore these NPA based investors here on the platform.
Top universities
New Palo Alto is a leading hub for innovation and technology startups due partly to its wealth in world-class education institutions such as Cambridge, Oxford, and Brainport Eindhoven.
These institutions provide best-in-class education to future founders and play a crucial role in fostering tech startup innovation by conducting cutting-edge research and offering resources to support entrepreneurship.
By affiliated startups
In the table below, you can browse leading New Palo Alto universities through a range of alumni-focused data points on the Dealroom platform.
In addition to the names above, New Palo Alto also includes several Life Science clusters like Leuven and Leiden.
By spinouts
New Palo Alto also leads globally in terms of spinout generation.
In the table below, you can browse leading New Palo Alto universities by the number of science spinouts.
The power of proximity
Europe has the world's highest concentration of developed tech ecosystems packed together.
The global map below measures the average number of connections between two tech ecosystem cities within 500km, one of which is a "top 50 city" per Dealroom's recently released Global Tech Ecosystem Benchmarking report. The distance of 500 kilometres is chosen because a day trip is possible there, even by train.
European countries such as Belgium, the UK, the Netherlands, Switzerland and France are among the top performers globally regarding the highest density of top ecosystems per square area.
Compared to other global regions such as the United States, Asia, and Oceania, European countries stand out ahead of the pack in this data point, as seen in the map below.
Within Europe, the countries with the highest concentration of nearby ecosystems are the UK, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Between Paris, London, Brussels and Amsterdam, direct train lines exist.
This infrastructure allows for easier access to resources, funding and talent, helping to foster innovation and collaboration among entrepreneurs.
Furthermore, these countries' well-connected networks can help startups scale up and expand their businesses more efficiently.
Furthermore, numerous important hubs such as Cambridge, Oxford, Bristol, Leuven, Eindhoven, and Ghent are closely connected to main hubs like London, Paris, and Amsterdam.
Sure, there are borders and jurisdictions to consider. But for a startup or science project, these are surmountable issues. Many European even relish the cultural diversity and the opportunities this brings.
This is precisely the idea behind New Palo Alto: breaking down mental barriers and stimulating more cross-border and intra-city thinking. To turn fragmentation into a mosaic of innovation.
Related content
Report: Introducing New Palo Alto
Report: The Next Generation of Tech Ecosystems
Report: Tech in the UK, France, the Netherlands
Dealroom Data: Explore 40k + startups and scaleups in New Palo Alto on the platform.