Munich-based car subscription startup Finn has topped the newly launched Sifted 100: DACH and CEE 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 25 countries, from Germany to Ukraine — calculates revenue growth using a two-year revenue compound annual growth rate (CAGR). Last year’s Sifted 50: Germany, Sifted 30: Central Europe and Sifted 30: Eastern Europe & Baltics leaderboards have been combined into a single unified ranking of 100 companies.
Collectively, the 100 have generated revenues of €4.54bn over the last three years and currently employ more than 9,000 people.
The top three
Led by cofounder and CEO Maximilian Wühr, Finn boasts an impressive 1,078% two-year revenue CAGR between 2022 and 2024, up from 697% last year. In that period, its annual revenue has shot up from €3.2m to €125.4m to €444.3m, by largely focusing on the German market.
In second place is Cologne-based AI call notetaker Tl;dv (736%), followed by Finmid (582%), another German company which is building “embedded fintech” infrastructure for online marketplaces that want to provide their own payment and financing options to customers.
Countries, sectors and investors dominating the list
Germany is home to the top five companies on the leaderboard, nine of the top 10 and 45% of the top 100. Much has been said recently of Munich overtaking Berlin as the top German tech hub, but Berlin is home to 22 companies, compared to Munich’s nine. Estonia is the next most represented state on the ranking with 11 companies.
A full third (33 startups) of the cohort are business-focused software startups; fintech is the second most dominant category (31).
Just 27 of the top 100 say they are profitable. Among this group, 11 are fintechs, including Spendbase, Finqware and Wflow.
HV Capital, Startup Wise Guys and Speedinvest are the most active private investors in the ranking, each backing six startups. The European Innovation Council is the most prolific public investor, backing five companies.
The most prolific angel investors are Zalando founder Rubin Ritter and Bolt backer Mikko Silventola, who have each backed three startups on the list.
The 10 fastest-growing startups in DACH and CEE
- Finn —1078.32%
- Tl;dv — 736.66%
- Finmid — 582.90%
- Nelly — 559.03%
- Sewts — 461.38%
- AlohaCamp — 459.09%
- The Exploration Company — 418.22%
- Frontnow — 336.62%
- N8n — 282.88%
- Climatiq — 275.92%
The full leaderboard is available only to Pro subscribers until May 21, at which point it becomes available to all users. The research report can be accessed here.
How the 100 were selected
To be eligible, companies had to meet the following criteria:
- Private and independent
- Headquartered in Albania, Armenia, Austria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Ukraine
- 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 April 9, 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/car-subscription-service-finn-tops-sifteds-dach-cee-leaderboard-for-the-second-year-in-a-row/
