Introduction

New Palo Alto (NPA) is a supercluster of leading European ecosystems and research hubs. When compared to global superclusters such as Beijing and Palo Alto, New 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

Below we break venture capital into three distinct stages:

• Early stage ($0-15M rounds)
• Breakout stage ($15-100M rounds)
• Scaleup ($100M+ rounds)

This provides more consistent and timeless segmentation of the startup & venture capital landscape (more so than self-reported round labeling, which are applied inconsistently, especially between business cycles). Explore all funding rounds into New Palo Alto here on the platform. London, Paris and Amsterdam are the leading hubs in New Palo Alto, making up over 65% of the total VC funding into New Palo Alto in the last 5 years. London attracted just under half all funding in 2024 with 46%. Early stage Access early-stage funding rounds into New Palo Alto startups here on the Dealroom platform. Breakout stage Access breakout-stage funding rounds into New Palo Alto startups here on the Dealroom platform. Scaleup stage Access scaleup-stage funding rounds into New Palo Alto startups here on the Dealroom platform.  

By Industry

Explore the most funded industries in NPA below

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By Segment

Explore the most funded segments in NPA below.

Top Investors

Explore the data for the most active investors into the New Palo Alto startup ecosystem as well as the most active NPA investors here on the Dealroom platform.  

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.