After publishing our trimestrial infographics for Q2 and Q3 2021, we’ve decided to come back to the whole 2021 year. We compiled the data from 340+ Proptech & Contech 2021 venture deals of EU-based startups, using our own data, Dealroom and Crunchbase. To stay true to our early stage focus, we chose only to screen startups & scale-ups across Europe (i.e. companies with less than 250 employees, founded after 2010 & with headquarters in Europe). We also tried to restrict ourselves to equity rounds, and to exclude debt rounds when we had the relevant info. 

As a result, we built the above infographics, which outlines 6 major trends : 

• The ecosystem is growing fast : €1.6Bn was raised last year over 340+ rounds - almost three times more than the amount raised by EU proptech startups in 2019. Approximately 1/10th of the worldwide investments in proptech fuels European companies (proptech investments worldwide are estimated to be around €18Bn). Q3 was the most dynamic quarter, with more than €550M raised. ‍
• Contech is booming : Contech represents almost 25% of all these rounds, and has grown during the year (20 contech rounds in Q1 VS 27 in Q4). But it remains early stage : 62% of disclosed contech rounds are less than €5M financing, which is higher than for any other category. (See for example our portfolio companies Laiout and Propster). ‍
• Not enough ESG rounds : Only 18% of the registered rounds were carried out by startups with ESG/Impact as core business, either on sustainability (15%) or on the reduction of social inequalities (3%). In the same way, too few rounds were undertaken by startups with a female founder (16%). ‍
• Largest rounds on Property Management and Real Estate Transactions : More than half of the 30 largest rounds are led by startups in Property Management or by players powering up the good old RE transactions (ie. Ibuying). ‍
• 4 countries are paving the way : UK, Germany, France and Spain account for 60%+ of the total number of rounds in 2021 and for 70% of the total amount raised. Nordic countries and Estonia are also very active. ‍
• Most investors focus on light and scalable technologies : Saas models account for +30% of rounds, whereas « Hardware » models (IoT, connected equipments, modular construction, robotics, etc.) only account for 20%.

Following the evolution of these indicators on a quarterly basis is a good way to monitor the expansion of the European Proptech & Contech ecosystem. Stay tuned for Q1 2022!

Axeleo Proptech I is an early-stage fund dedicated to European Proptech and Contech. As part of Axeleo Capital, we offer European proptech & B2B founders a unique support framework combining early-stage investment, a tailor-made acceleration program and direct access to an ecosystem of over 100 seasoned software experts and mentors. Our proptech investments include GarantMe, Check&visit, Prello, Laiout, Beanstock, Bright Spaces...