In 2024, Estonian startups have received the least investment in the last five years

Startup Estonia presented data on Estonian startups for the year 2024.

The average age of an Estonian startup founder is 39 years old, which coincides with the data from the Baltic Startup Survey in 2024 from BalticVC. Education is still an important indicator of leadership in the field: 59% of founders have a university degree. However, the gender balance among founders remains unchanged: women make up about 16%.

The number of people employed in the Estonian startup sector decreased by 1.4% last year - a total of 14,396 people were employed in the sector at the end of last year. It is noteworthy that the biggest decline was observed in mature companies - the number of employees in startups aged 6 to 10 years decreased by 8.5%.

Leading the way in hiring is Wise, with 2006 employees and 107 new hires compared to the same period last year, followed by Bolt, with 1,329 employees; Playtech, with 661 employees; Yolo, with 554 employees; and Swappie, with 436 employees.

The average salary in the startup sector in 2024 is €3,650 - about 14% or €603 less than a year earlier. However, this is twice the national average. The highest salaries were for workers aged 41-50, with an average salary of €4,491 per month.

Investors allocated €326.6M to Estonian startups in 2024, 23% less than in 2023 and the lowest annual investment volume in the last five years. Despite the downturn, the sector has shown adaptability with 57 deals, 29 of which exceeded €1M in size. DeepTech accounted for 63% of the total investment in startups in Estonia in 2024.

The largest funding rounds in Estonia in 2024 included investments in Starship Technologies (€90M), Stargate Hydrogen (€42M), Elcogen (€30M), Tuum (€25M), Pactum (€18.4M), Bot Guard (€12M), Modash (€11M), eAgronoom (€10M) and Mifundo (€10M).