Former employees of seven Baltic unicorns founded 60 new startups

Former employees of five Estonian and two Lithuanian unicorns founded 60 new tech companies in the Baltic region. US venture capital fund Accel and data platform Dealroom published a report "The founder-factories and the founder's journey of European and Israeli startups", in which they made a list of unicorns, whose ex-employees founded the most amount of new companies in Europe and Israel. They took a period starting from pre-2010 till February 28, 2023.

On the tenth line of the list was Estonian software developer Skype, whose employees spawned 22 new companies. Employees of money transfer service Wise, which was founded by Estonian entrepreneurs, established 22 new tech companies. The employees of Estonian mobility unicorn Bolt founded nine startups. The alumni from Estonian CRM and intelligent revenue management platform Pipedrive launched 6 startups, and the alumni from Tallinn-based online identity verification company Veriff - 3. 

Accel and Dealroom included in the report two Vilnius-based companies - second-hand clothing marketplace Vinted, the alumni of which started three new companies, and provider of digital security and privacy solutions for individuals and businesses Nord security. Its former employees launched one company.  

Taking into account the Nordic region, Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Baltic countries, 59% of new tech companies raised venture capital funding, 48% received between $1M and $10M of venture investments, and 25% of those who have raised VC funding secured more than $10M.

The average age of second-generation entrepreneurs when they found a company was 35 years. 65% of the founders have gotten a higher education diploma, and 39% of them - a technical degree. 77% of founders have worked for seven or more years before starting their own company. 59% of unicorn alumni founded their startups within a year of leaving the company. 

Dealroom.co is a data provider on startups, growth companies, and tech ecosystems in Europe and around the globe. It was founded in Amsterdam in 2013.