2022 continued to bring great rounds of follow-on investment for European companies. Europe is quickly catching up to North America when it comes to the number of unicorn companies, benefiting from an increasing investment interest. Healthcare sector is leading the way, as it also reflects the European Innovation Council’s portfolio, according to the 2022 Impact Report. When it comes to the EIC Accelerator’s portfolio, it now includes 112 “centaurs” (valuation over €100m) and 11 “unicorns” (valuation over € 1 billion). The total valuation of the EIC portfolio of companies is now around €40 billion.

EIC Unicorns

Below, you can get to know who the current EIC-backed Unicorns are. These companies come from different markets, but they are mainly working on the ICT and Engineering sectors, as well as in Health.

2022

Relex OY | Valuation: €5500 million | Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

RELEX Solutions helps retailers and consumer goods brands drive profitable growth across all sales and distribution channels by maximising customer satisfaction and minimising operative costs with their unified supply chain and retail planning platform. After closing a funding round on February 2022, the company has reached Unicorn status with a valuation of more than €5500 million.

Rimac Automobili | Valuation: €2200 million | Engineering and technology

Rimac, a Croatian company, designs, engineers and produces high-performance EV components and systems to help the automotive industry building great hybrid and electric vehicles. Their innovation consists in a unique electrical power source that works wherever there is a need to combine strong power surges for relatively short periods of time and lower average power consumption.

NEL HYDROGEN | Valuation: €2000 million | Energy

Nel is delivering optimal solutions to produce and distribute hydrogen from renewable energy. Their hydrogen solutions cover the entire value chain from hydrogen production technologies to hydrogen fuelling stations, enabling industries to transition to green hydrogen, and providing all fuel cell electric vehicles with the same fast fuelling and long range as fossil-fuelled vehicles.

Innovafeed | Valuation: €1000 million |Food 

InnovaFeed’s insect protein is an alternative source of quality protein that addresses the fish feed challenge and supports the aquaculture sector’s growth. InnovaFeed has optimised the zootechnical model of Hermetia illucens (European endemic fly species) to achieve maximum productivity.

Full article: https://eic.eismea.eu/community/ >>>