Europe's New Tech Founders 2025: The Era of Execution (Antler)

Summary

• The study analysed more than 3,000 unicorn founders and 60,000 founders at the inception of their founding journey.p.2
• Since 2020, nearly 150 European tech companies have become unicorns, and 14 of those were founded since 2020.p.3
• On average it has taken startups 7.2 years to reach unicorn status in Europe, but two years for the rocketships.p.3
• 93% of Antler portfolio companies report that AI has allowed them to execute faster than ever before.p.4
• 85% of companies used AI to build their MVPs, compared with 30% five years ago.p.4
• Only 1 of Europe's post-2020 rocketships is from London, and 50% of US rocketship founders come from big tech companies, compared to 30% in Europe.p.7

Key insights

1. 67% of the investors leading rocketship funding rounds come from Europe.p.3
2. For products in full production, up to 40% of the code is AI generated, which is 3x higher since 2020.p.4
3. Between 2023 and 2025, the number of AI engineers becoming founders increased by 14x, and since 2022 the number of AI founders has increased by 4x.p.5
4. Only one AI unicorn founder in Europe is a woman.p.7
5. 40% of founders in Antler's portfolio named Lovable as the company they most admire in the world.p.9
6. 80% of the founders in Antler's portfolio said they wanted their own speed of execution to be faster.p.9