Global Scaleup Mapping

The foremost data provider on startups, growth companies, and tech ecosystems globally. Dealroom.co works with many of the world’s most prominent investors, entrepreneurs and government organizations to provide transparency, analysis and insights on startups and venture capital activity. Here are the key facts and figures about the global scaleup landscape.

Key Numbers

• 12.4K startups have received over $50 million in disclosed VC investment. See the list of startups which joined the scaleup club in 2023 here.
• Startups founded between 2006 and 2016 account for more than half of all scaleups, with the 2013–2016 cohort the largest, with 3.7K scaleups.
• 4.1K (33%) of all scaleups were founded by serial founders.
• BioPharma is the leading industry by number of scaleups globally, with over 1.8K scaleups.
• Fintech is a close second, with 1.7K scaleups globally.
• There are 2.2K global Deep Tech scaleups, which includes scaleups from a variety of industries.
• 1.1K scaleups are impact-focused (9% of the global total)
• 2.4K scaleups have been acquired (19% of the global total).
• 1.6K scaleups have IPO'd (13% of the global total).

Geographical Distribution

• 7.5K (60%) of all global scaleups are based in North America.
• 990 (8%) of all global scaleups are based in E.U. countries.
• 9.9K (79%) of all scaleups are based in OECD countries.
• The U.S., China, and the U.K. are the top countries by number of total scaleups , with 7.1K based in the U.S. That’s 4.8x more scaleups than China and 11.5x more than the U.K.
• 623 scaleups are based in the U.K., 35% of the European total.
• 65 scaleups were founded or are currently based in Africa.
• 103 scaleups were founded or are currently based in Australia or New Zealand.

Startup Output

• Startups that have become scaleups since 2021 account for 2% of the total stock of currently active funded startups in North America.

• 6% of North America's active and funded startups have become scaleups since 2021.

*Startup output is calculated as new scaleups since December 2020 / all funded startups.

**China is excluded from this analysis as the numbers are skewed by our limited reach of VC funding at early stage for Chinese startups, which results in a higher startup output result, mainly driven by the smaller pool of funded startups in China.