2024 was a rollercoaster year for startup fundraising, with debt financing stealing the spotlight and smashing records (at least in the first half of the year). A whopping €24.4bn was raised across 293 rounds — the highest total ever in European tech. But equity funding still reigned supreme, with an impressive €46.3bn invested in over 5k deals, according to Sifted data.
What’s driving this shift? From climate tech to autonomous vehicles, startups are finding new ways to fuel their growth, leveraging a mix of equity and debt to scale their companies.
In this piece, we dive into the biggest funding rounds of the year — from €5bn green loans to massive Series C equity raises — and spotlight the companies shaping the future of industries like energy, transportation and AI.
The largest debt rounds:
Northvolt — €5bn
Northvolt, a Swedish battery manufacturer and Europe’s best-funded climate tech startup, secured a $5bn green loan to expand its factory in northern Sweden in January. The lenders were a group of 23 commercial banks, alongside the European Investment Bank and the Nordic Investment Bank. It brought the total debt and equity raised by the company to $13bn.
It’s the largest loan raised by a climate tech company in Europe to date, however, as Sifted later reported, a large chunk of that money never reached the company. In November Northvolt filed for a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in the US.
Stegra — €4.5bn
Stegra (formerly H2 Green Steel), a Swedish green steel project and one of Europe’s most closely watched climate infrastructure startups, secured €4.2bn in debt financing in January. The debt financing comes from a group of 20 lenders, including BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, ING, KfW IPEX-Bank, the European Investment Bank and Svensk Exportkredit.
As part of the round, Stegra also raised €300m in equity from investors including Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, Mubea and Siemens Financial Services.
SumUp — €1.5bn
UK-based SME fintech SumUp raised €1.5bn in a debt round led by Goldman Sachs with the participation of BlackRock, Crestline Investors, Liquidity Capital, Oaktree Capital Management, Sentinel Dome and Singapore state-owned investment firm Temasek. Since the start in 2012, the company has raised over €3.2bn.
Verkor — €1.3bn
French scaleup Verkor, which is building a battery gigafactory in Dunkirk, in the north of France, secured a debt round of €1.3bn in May. The site is one of five gigafactories set to be built in France, part of Europe’s push to secure its electric vehicle supply chain. The new loan comes from the sixteen commercial banks and three public banks, including the European Investment Bank, Bpifrance, ING BANK NV and Banco Santander. Verkor has so far raised €3bn in total.
Enpal — €1.1bn
Enpal, one of Europe’s best-funded climate tech startups that offer home energy tech to consumers, secured a €1.1bn debt vehicle from Barclays Europe, Bank of America and Credit Agricole CIB to cover its next 35k customers, in March. The company said at the time that the facility, known as asset-backed security, is the first of its kind in Europe linked to renewable energy, though the setup is common in America.
Enpal has been transforming its offering in the last year from solely supplying PV systems to creating a package of products for its customers, including batteries, electric vehicle chargers, heat pumps with connecting apps and tech services.
Other large debt rounds in 2024:
- London-based payments scaleup Tabeo raised £750m in June.
- Catania, Italy-based solar panel startup 3Sun raised €560m in January.
- London-based climate infrastructure startup Zenobe raised $523m in January.
- London-based digital lending startup Abound raised £400m in debt in May.
- London-based digital bank Vida Bank raised €360m in debt in January.
The largest equity rounds:
Wayve — $1.05bn
UK autonomous vehicle scaleup Wayve raised a $1.05bn Series C in May, led by new investor SoftBank, also featuring Nvidia and existing backer Microsoft. It was the largest equity round in Europe ever and it brought the startup’s total funding to $1.26bn, according to Dealroom.
Founded in 2017, Wayve has distinguished itself with its “AV2.0 approach” to self-driving technology — its vehicles effectively ‘learn’ while on the job, just like a human would. It has in recent months announced a partnership with Uber, to fit its technology into Uber taxis. The partnership also included a strategic investment, which is understood to be less than $100m into Wayve.
Mistral — €468m
Paris-based AI darling Mistral closed a €468m equity funding round at a €5.8bn valuation in June, led by new investor DST Global and existing backer General Catalyst. Previous investors Lightspeed and Andreessen Horowitz also invested in the round, along with French banks Bpifrance and BNP Paribas, VC firm Headline and US cloud company Salesforce’s VC arm Salesforce Ventures. From starting off with the promise to be an open-source competitor to companies like OpenAI — this year the company has released its first commercial product — an LLM called Mistral Large and since then added a range of models that are free to access, but it also sells premium technology targeting enterprises.
Abound — £400m
London-based fintech Abound announced an £400m equity round (and equal amount of debt) in May led by GSR Ventures. The round would be used to expand into prime lending in the UK and to roll out Render, its proprietary AI credit technology platform, globally. The funding takes the total raised for the fintech to £1.3bn.
Poolside — $500m
US/French AI startup Poolside, which is building AI models that can create software code, raised a $500m Series B in October, ahead of the release of its first product. The round was led by global investor Bain Capital Ventures; VC firm DST Global. A number of enterprises such as Nvidia, HSBC Ventures, LG Technology Ventures and eBay Ventures also invested. The fundraise gave Poolside a $3bn valuation.
Helsing — €450m
German AI defence startup Helsing raised a €450m Series C in July, led by General Catalyst. Other investors participating were Elad Gil, Accel, Saab, Lightspeed, Plural and Greenoaks. The company, which develops AI software for use on the battlefield, launched just three years ago and was valued at €4.95bn at its latest raise, according to Bloomberg. Helsing has also secured support from the German government, winning a programme of record contract — a pre-approved and budgeted bucket of money for a certain defence capability.
Other large equity rounds:
- London-based neobank Monzo raised $430m in March.
- London-based B2B SaaS startup Lighthouse raised €370m in November.
- Amsterdam-based food delivery startup Picnic raised €355m in January.
- Paris-based EV-charging startup Electra raised €304m in January.
- Stockholm-based green steel scaleup Stegra raised €300m in January.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/20-largest-equity-debt-rounds-2024/
