More than 10 European startups became unicorns this year

Summary

Funding season is about to restart in Europe after the summer lull, and if all goes well, it will be counting new unicorns in dozens — plural. While mega-rounds are less common than they were in 2021, this hasn’t prevented 12 European startups from raising rounds at valuations of more than $1 billion during the first half of 2025. As the usual caveat goes, past performance is not indicative of future results, but this bodes well for the rest of the year. Either way, this is also a good indication of the sectors that are hot among investors, from biotech and defense tech to AI, AI, and AI. Here are the new European unicorns of 2025: September 2025 IQM IQM, a Finnish startup that develops quantum computers and a cloud platform that taps this hardware, became a unicorn after raising more than $300 million in a Series B funding round. The company has raised a total of $600 million so far. “We are now the company that has sold the most quantum computers globally, in all major continents,” its CEO Jan Goetz told TechCrunch. IQM’s 54-qubit chips are already in use at computing centers, research labs, universities, and enterprises, and the company is getting ready to deploy its first 150-qubit systems. Framer No-code website builder Framer reached a $2 billion valuation after landing a $100 million Series D funding round that was led by existing investors Meritech and Atomico. The company will use the fresh cash to double down on its enterprise strategy and AI. Competing with the likes of Figma, Squarespace, Wix, and vibe coding platforms, Framer has a strong focus on design. Its co-founders, Koen Bok and Jorn van Dijk, had previously sold a design studio to Facebook in 2011. Techcrunch event San Francisco | October 27-29, 2025 July 2025 Lovable Fast-growing Swedish AI vibe coding startup Lovable became a unicorn in record time. In July, only eight months after its launch, it raised a $200 million Series A led by Accel at a $1.8 billion valuation. One note: Lovable Labs Inc...