February saw 411 VC investments across Europe, with $2.7bn invested in total. While the number of investments declined by 29% year-over-year, the investment volume declined by 16% year-over-year.
Number and volume of announced funding rounds over the past 12 months*
- Number of funding rounds
- Invested volume in $bn
Leading Industries and Investors
According to the number of conducted investments, the Health Care startups again lead the market with a total of 128 investments in the broader industry. AI startups secured the second spot with 100 investments, closely followed by FinTech startups (71).
Regarding the investors behind those funding rounds, the EIC Accelerator emerged as the most active VC investor, participating in 25 deals. With this, the accelerator leads ahead of Bpifrance (12 deals), CDP Venture Capital (10 deals), Fuel Ventures (5 deals) and Merica Ventures (5 deals) among the top 5 investors of the month.
Top 10 Industries of Financed Startups
- Health Care
- AI
- FinTech
- Web
- BioTech
- Food and Beverage
- Retail
- Manufacturing
- Energy
- PropTech
Top 5 Investors with the highest number of deals
- EIC Accelerator
- Bpifrance
- CDP Venture Capital
- Fuel Ventures
- Merica Ventures
Notable funding rounds across Europe
In February, the largest funding round was a $142 million Venture Round secured by OrganOx, a startup developing innovative medical devices to preserve human organs outside the body, increasing success rates for organ transplants. The company was founded in 2008 in Oxford.
While Seed Rounds accounted for a major part of investment rounds, making up approximately 37% of the total rounds, the highest investment volume was seen in Venture Rounds, which accounted for $904 million across 100 deals.
The largest Seed Round was secured by NanoPhoria. The Health Care and Biotech company, founded in 2022 in Milan, raised €15.0 million.
Number and total volume of financing rounds per stage
- Number of funding rounds per stage
- Volume of financing rounds per stage in $mn
Detailed overview by stage
European VC Industry Hotspots
When ranking by the number of conducted investments, London remains the hotspot of the European VC industry in February. Paris, Berlin, and Barcelona keep their ranks in the top five cities, followed by Stockholm on fifth place.
During February, the UK led the way with the most investment rounds at 95, once again followed by France with 52. Also Germany keeps its third spot with 48 investments.
When ranking the cities by investment volume rather than the number of investments, Cambridge ($187.8mn), Dublin ($181.0mn), and Oxford ($173.8mn) join London and Paris in the top 5.
VC Exit Overview
In February, 31 exits took place. However, following 8 months which each included at least one IPO exit, no IPO took place in February.
With 13 exits, FinTech companies present the largest exit industry of the month, followed by Food and Beverage (8) and Retail (5) companies.
Most companies exited in the UK with 12 exits, followed by 9 companies in France.
- Number of Acquisition Exits
- Number of IPO Exits
PE Acquisitions Overview
Private Equity (PE) continues its uptrend against the previous year with February acquisitions increasing by 32% to 33, compared to February 2024. With 9 acquisitions, the UK saw the highest number of companies acquired while FinTech companies dominated also as the top acquisition targets with 9 acquisitions.
The Private Equity share as part of the total 444 investment rounds in February (VC + PE) doubled increased by 3 percentage points compared to last year, reaching 7% .
However, with 33 acquisitions February presented the first month with less than 40 acquisitions since September 2024.
The largest known acquisition was Fortress Investment Group’s acquisition of Loungers, UK-based
operator of bar, restaurant and café chains, for £354 million.
- % of all investment rounds
- Number of PE acquisitions
*All data from CrunchBase, as of March 10, 2025.
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