Last month saw 358 VC investments across Europe, with $6.3bn invested in total – the highest figure in the last 12 months, marking a 150% increase compared to March 2024!
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 111 investments in the broader industry. AI startups secured the second spot with 78 investments, closely followed by FinTech startups (57).
Regarding the investors behind those funding rounds, Seeds of Bravery was the most active investor with 19 investments, an initiative by the European Innovation Council to support local startups and tech companies in Ukraine. With this, the initiative leads ahead of Bpifrance (9 deals), Y Combinator (9 deals), CDP Venture Capital (6 deals) and Seedcamp (5 deals) among the top 5 investors of the month.
Top 10 Industries of Financed Startups
- Health Care
- AI
- FinTech
- BioTech
- Manufacturing
- Web
- Energy
- Retail
- Food and Beverage
- Marketing
Top 5 Investors with the highest number of deals
- Seeds of Bravery
- Bpifrance
- Y Combinator
- CDP Venture Capital
- Seedcamp
Notable funding rounds across Europe
In March, the largest funding round was a $2.0 billion Venture Round secured by the blockchain ecosystem and digital asset exchange platform Binance. The company was founded in 2017 in Malta.
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 $4.4 billion across 82 deals.
The largest Seed Round was secured by Reflection AI. The AI startup, founded in 2019 in New York, raised €25.0 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, followed by Berlin and Paris. In March, Kyiv and Helsinki join the top 5 European VC cities.
The most investments in March were conducted in the UK (96), followed by Germany (47) and France (38).
When ranked by investment volume rather than the number of investments, Sliema (Malta, $2.0bn) takes the first spot and Verese (Italy, $130mn) join London, Berlin and Paris in the top 5 cities.
VC Exit Overview
In March, 47 exits took place. Following no IPO exits in February, 2 IPOs were reported in March.
With 13 exits, Health Care companies present the largest exit industry of the month, followed by FinTech (12) and AI (9) companies.
Most companies exited in the UK with 10 exits, followed by 7 companies in France.
- Number of Acquisition Exits
- Number of IPO Exits
PE Acquisitions Overview
March recorded 28 PE acquisitions, accounting for 7% of all VC and PE rounds. This reflects a 13% decrease in PE deals compared to March 2024 and the lowest number in 12 months.
With 5 acquisitions, Germany saw the highest number of companies acquired in March.
Energy, FinTech and Health Care dominated as the top acquisition targets with 5 acquisitions each.
The standout deal was Bain Capital’s €1.1bn acquisition of Namirial, an Italy-based technology solutions provider for digital transactions.
- % of all investment rounds
- Number of PE acquisitions
*All data from CrunchBase, as of April 3, 2025.
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