Paris-based Electra, a company that installs charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs), has topped the newly launched Sifted 100: France and southern Europe 2025 Leaderboard — a ranking of the 100 startups with the strongest revenue growth in the region over the past three financial years.
The leaderboard — which covers nine countries — calculates revenue growth using a two-year revenue compound annual growth rate (CAGR).
Led by cofounder and CEO Aurélien de Meaux, Electra notches a 681.5% two-year revenue CAGR between 2022 and 2024. The company has fitted 475 charge stations around Europe, with a target of 15k by 2030. Electra, which says a 20-minute charge gives a range of 400km, raised €304m from investors in 2024.
As the number of places to plug your vehicle in in Europe is increasing rapidly, charging companies like Electra have a target in sight: the EU’s 2035 ban on the sale of new CO2-emitting cars. But for Europe to make this deadline, many more chargers will be needed — particularly at key locations along long-distance journeys — to give drivers confidence to switch to EVs.
Setting up a charging site can cost €500k-600k, de Meaux says, and take the best part of a year. “You have to be patient. You need to find locations, establish subsidiaries anywhere you go, hire people,” says de Meaux. “Getting a grid connection could take six or seven months. The Netherlands, for example, is very difficult because the grid is highly congested. We got quotes for 2029 and 2030.”
The overall market for electric vehicles continues to grow, but there are big geographic differences. A minority of car owners live in houses where home charging is possible. “The US is a big oil producer but the EU has almost zero oil and gas. It’s not about whether we want to be green or not, from a sovereignty point, we have to go electric,” he says.
Silver and bronze medals
In close second spot in the ranking is Barcelona-based Rever (674.6% CAGR), which specialises in handling e-commerce returns. Third is Paris-based Sifflet (582%), a “data observability platform”, which helps companies improve their internal data analysis.
Rever’s founders, Màrius Montmany and CEO Oriol Hernandez i Fajula, got their break in 2022 when they were admitted to the Y Combinator accelerator in Silicon Valley. “Entering YC changes how you’re perceived: you go from being a Spanish company to being a YC company.”
Montmany wants to see more global-sized, Spanish-born companies. “We have two or three role models in Spain, we don’t have 25.” Oscar Pierre, founder of speedy grocery delivery site Glovo, is a founder Montmany admires (he’s also an early Rever backer). “We need to be motivated by success stories and I’m happy to be the next one,” Montmany says.
Other big names on the ranking include Paris AI startup Nabla (ranked 5th), Portuguese employee benefits site Coverflex (46th) and Palantir-like French company ChapsVision (80th).
Countries, sectors and investors
France is home to 44 companies on the leaderboard and eight of the top 10. Italy is the next most represented country with 28 companies.
Only 16 companies on the ranking have a female founder or cofounder, among them Italian mental health startup Unobravo (ranked 27th) and French sustainable clothing site Fairly Made (63rd).
A full third (33 startups) of the cohort are business-focused software startups; fintech is the second most dominant category (31). Only two companies — Spain’s Multiverse Computing and France’s Omi — are deeptechs.
Just 31 of the 100 startups say they are profitable, among them Grenoble-based energy storage company BioEsol and Paris insurtech Neat Protect.
Investors Kima Ventures, Bpifrance, CDP Venture Capital and Breega are the most active backers of the top 100.
The 10 fastest-growing startups in France and southern Europe
- Electra — 681.46%
- Rever — 674.6%
- Folk — 532.46%
- Sifflet — 505.53%
- Nabla — 460.77%
- sheerME — 330.95%
- BioEsol — 309.74%
- Neat Protect — 309.47%
- Danelfin — 308.29%
- Najar — 305.43%
A deep dive into the top 100 can be found here.
How the 100 were selected
To be eligible, companies had to meet the following criteria:
- Private and independent
- Headquartered in Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal or Spain.
- Majority of revenue must be generated by proprietary technology
- No older than 15 years old (founded in or after 2010)
- At least three years of revenue data, either between 2021-2023, 2022-2024 or 2023-25 depending on filing dates, across comparable accounting periods of at least 26 weeks
- Revenue (annualised if necessary) of at least €50k in the base year (predominantly 2021 or 2022) and at least €500k in the latest financial year (2023 or 2024).
Sifted’s research team used their own proprietary data, along with information from Dealroom to identify and contact relevant high-growth startups. Applications were accepted from January 1 to May 14, 2025. Companies were required to submit relevant, signed documentation to support financial information disclosed to Sifted. Some companies chose to keep some of this information private.
Sifted Leaderboards do not claim to be exhaustive as private company data can be difficult to obtain. Leaderboards are based on historical financial data and do not guarantee future company performance.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/ev-charging-startup-electra-tops-sifted-100-france-and-southern-europe/
